I recently removed the C-pillar trims to re-cover them. A fine job I did too, even if I do say so myself! (Photos of the whole job will follow...) However when replacing the seatbelt guide the threads stripped and I cant torque the bolt up to the required 33ftlb, no-where near.
Now the bolt screws into a captive nut, which is welded into the chassis/body, and its this nut which has stripped out. WHY was the bolt designed with a stronger thread that the captive nut, and has anyone got any experience/ideas of how to fix this problem. My rear off-side seatbelt is currently U.S.
in article snipped-for-privacy@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com, Al at snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote on 30/08/2006 15:09:
I'd be interested to see a walkthrough - I have mine to do soon. Did you re-do the speaker mounts and parcel shelf as well? I intend to follow on from the parcel shelf, through the speaker mounts, C pillars and then headliner.
Sorry ... I've not this far yet :)
I know PDA (on UKSAABs, etc) has undertaken the same job ... Maybe he can shed a little light if no-one here can help. I'm sure there's someone here though.
Paul, it's PDA's sticky that encouraged me to have a go! I thought I'd start with the C pillars first as it would give me a fair indication as to how difficult/easy working with the materials is. Turns out to be fairly simple, but you need to have your wits about you. As for the parcel shelf and speaker mounts, I'm doing them in carpet again but not right now, that's a future project with new leather to cover the door cards. Certainly Woolies seem to have a good selection of trims and the empire grey I'm using for the c-pillars and headlining is only £6.50 a metre. A local Saab specialist to us warned me off headlining kits from a certain internet company who specialise in bits for Swedish autos other than Volvos, as in their opinion the material wasn't up to much.
There is a guy locally in Clekheaton who will do headliners, but I'm going to go for it myself, though I have some fairly serious repairs to do to the shell itself first. hopefully if I can pull it off, it'll make a good reference project for other C900 owners. Replacement liners aren't made by SAAB any more and there are quite a few variations, 4 door, 5 door, 3 door,
2 door with/without grab handles, centre roof light or not etc etc(hey I don't need to tell Paul Halliday about C900 variations eh?!?) so getting a good matching one from a scrappy is increasingly difficult.
Any road up, my main problem is this stripped captive nut, its more of a problem than I first thought, as simply using a longer bolt with a loose nut behind isn't possible due to the C-pillar getting in the way....
in article NClJg.89783$ snipped-for-privacy@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk, Al at snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote on 30/08/2006 20:25:
I'm following suit with the black leatherette that I recovered the door card inners and parcel shelf with. Finishing off the speaker housing and then moving onto the C pillars and headlining. I know black sounds very dark for an interior, but it is getting quite popular to have dark interiors in more model "sports" cars. I got mine from Leeds indoor market, top of the Merrion at the back of that hardware shop. I'll certainly look in at Woolies, though.
While the headliner is out, our friends at Aeromotive are going to do some more work in the inner parts of the sunroof and I'll perhaps get the wiring and tubing in for a rear wash/wiper ... Something sorely lacking from my model. I've got nothing to suspect my headlining is at all bad ... Just the material sagging ... So here's hoping :)
I grew up in Cleck ... Who's the chap? I'm pretty sure I know what to do, but it's good to know of someone "just in case". Might turn out to be an old pal ... Who knows?
I reckon just remove the old lining, scrape off all the old foam and then sand down to a good finish. Apply the new material onto a good adhesive, using a small roller to work the new fabric onto the board. When totally dry, trim and re-fit to the roof. Is that about it?
Yeah, good luck. I'm not at all sure what to suggest. Can it be drilled and re-tapped? What about feeding a new screw up the C pillar on the end of a magnetic tipped flexible wand and gently feeding a longer screw to it? Looking at these pictures it would seem you can get access, but not with hands.
You could drill out what's left of the thread in the captive nut, tap a new thread that's a larger diameter, and get a different bolt to suit. I haven't needed to take out rear seatbelts before so I'm not sure if using a larger bolt would require a lot of extra drilling, etc. beside re-threading the captive nut.
Cut new thread with the helicoil thread cutter Screw in a helicoil with the diam of the original seat belt bolt, knock off the end of the helicoil with the helicoil tool, as per instructions. Use the original seat belt bolt in the now new helicoil thread.
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