Eventually the saab died of old age. There was no single specific cause of death, just everything started to not work right. The clutch slipped at anything over 3000 rpm. It died when you hit bumps, and I had to pop the clutch to restart it. It wouldn't start when it was hot. And it would mysteriously lock the tranmission after 10 miles of driving. Let it sit for 4 hours and it is fine for another 10 miles. (I discovered that 10 hours before I had to catch a flight to Moscow...fun) So it sat in my garage. And moved from one garage to another like Sloth until I felt I was stable enough to take on an undertaking like I knew lay in front of me. I mean stable as in I didn't move every year, not stable as in emotionally. Emotionally stable people drop cars like this off at the junk yard and buy Camrys. But you know, the car was my first and you never forget your first car...unlike whats her face...(I keed...I keed). So when I bought the house, (also my first but no such emotionally attachment, I'm glad its gone), I took apart the saabette to cure what ails her. Which is when I found out that the rear axle was not solidly attached, and with the body off, the chassis was limber like a yoga instructor. At that point I dragged her down to the community college and learned how to weld and fabricate. I must be really good at it now because I've had a LOT of practice.

Here are some pictures of the school and the state of the car when I started.

pictures died. I'll try and come back later and fill them in.

Its been, I guess, nearly a year and a half now, and I just finished the structural body work, and most of the hole patches. I cut, bent and welded about 4x14 feet of sheetmetal. That is 56 sq ft, 512 cubic inches, and weighs 145 lbs! I have about 350 hours in it now.I still have some structural work to do, I guess, in modifying the firewall to put in an as of yet undetermined airconditioning system. I can still busy myself with little patches to some non structural holes, and finishing stripping the entire chasis so I can take all the undercoating and paint off and repaint it. Once I get it painted (hopefully this summer) then I've really turned the corner. I can actually start assembly, instead of dissassembly!