Early Saab Sport&Rally prototype?
In this car I found out body strengthened kit as a 70´s in Works V4 96. There are some differences and its look like homemade. So I called to previous owner and right; he has made it and fixed in place early 60´s, because they were noticed in rally cars that lower swinginarm fastening points are really weak points.
Typically start up- situation after the engine&gearbox has lifted out. Notice body strengthened kits in both side (left on the photo, behind the blue shovel)
Because of many decades corrosion process, the metal has puff up and angle iron has turn a curve
After knocking with hammer and screwdriver rust loose
Here you can see how thick rusted sheet metal can be. Normally, if rusty bodies look like this, there is not more solid sheet metal left. Thanks Saabs thick material, in this case, the situation wasn’t so worst as it first look.
After I had cleaned all the loose rust away, I finally could find out the importance of body-strengthened kit. Both side front corners were broken!
Repair welding complete.
Elimination of rust with citric acid
Elimination of rust with Citric acid is a cost-effective way takes rust away from tiny metal pieces. My rally mechanic has purchased from local Farm store a can of acid a reasonable price. He also coach me how to do hole process. Its simply, just 5% Citric acid in granulate form mixed to warm water. After mix is ready, you just put metal pieces to the can, under mixture. This is my first experiment. It sounds good, when you don’t need use grinder to take rust away. That’s very important when you have parts such these early prototypes which are already rusted thin. Corrosion also makes tiny craters full of rust which is impossible take of with grinding machine. Put, Citric acid works also those craters!
5% mixture. Yellow colour tells you that process is going. I made mixture to very warm water, and that fore it works fast in a beginning. Later on, when liquid was getting colder near my garage temperature +12 Celsius, the process lower. So, if you have possibility to warm up a little pit, the whole procedure will be faster.
After 2 hours you can allready see the difference
After being 46 hours in liquid, the parts look these. I have brushed loose rust away with a wire brush. It looks that they can bathe one more day.
