2008-11-01.
The heater blades now have new "arms" for the cables. They were made from brass tube and steel rods that were soldered together and then glued to the blades.
Works really well and was actually pretty easy to do.
A little something about the wheels:
The front suspension is now pretty much assembled. The driveshafts are where they should and also the brakes were put together (new pistons, shoes, springs, etc.).
The car is now much easier to move around as I could put the wheels on. But as it happens I have a mixed set of "workshop" rims, some of the new type and some of the older type.
So, as I put them on I (once again) wondered why on earth Saab changed the rim center hole when they re-designed the rims back then.
Now, if you have a V4 you know how annoying it is to change a wheel since the hub has only a little lip to hold the wheel. Effectively you have to hold the full weight of the wheel, possibly supporting it with your foot, as you try get the first nut in its hole.
Here's the old type rim. As you can see, the lip of the center hole curves inward. This helps to keep the wheel in place as you get the nuts in. Actually, you may not need to support it at all.
Here's the usual V4 type rim. And as you can see the lip curves outward. This causes the wheel to just slide of the hub. You need to hold the wheel up and get a nut in any which way you can.
Well, it may not sound that bad, but it is especially annoying considering that here we have to change the wheel set two times a year - winter tyres and summer tyres. And every time it's the same acrobatics.
The redesign was necessary as the older type wheels couldn't take the punishment on long rally stages. Sometimes the wheels just ripped apart around the nuts or the outer rim was separated from the center piece. The wheels were even sometimes reinforced by welding steel bars on the inside.
Ofcourse, on the stroker I will use the older type wheel. But here's an interesting bit about those - there is also two types of the older wheel.
The older old type is riveted together and it has the lip that curves inward. So, it is user friendly but would you trust a 40 year old rim that's riveted together...
The newer old type is spot welded but it already has the lip that curves outward. Safer, but not user friendly.
So, even though Saab noticed a serious problem with the rims and fixed it, I wish they would have found a different solution for the center hole...