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A couple of years ago my trusty Beastie took a bullet, or maybe it was just a rock, in the right eye. It still has quite a ways to go before it has as many bullet holes in it as its owner. Anyway, the right headlamp lens ended up with a small round hole in the center. I put some of that wide extra-clear tape you use for mailing packages over the hole, and then kept vigilant for junkyards with Saabs in them, hoping to find a replacement headlamp assembly. Never found one.
Fortunately, Florida doesn't have any sort of vehicle inspection, so I didn't have to pay the $200 or so it would cost me to get a new one. I drove around with the tape over the hole, driving amongst the barely road-worthy wrecks on Florida's highways (no inspections, remember?), figuring I'd get around to replacing it one day. I probably sound like an old fart here, but I sorta miss the days you could just go buy a new headlight at K-Mart for three bucks! The '87 and later US variant of the 900 have a whole assembly that needs to be replaced as one big unit. You can't just change the lens.
One day I felt charitable toward a bunch of teenagers washing cars and decided to let them rinse the grime off the Beastie. They did a decent job, soaping it down with rags, spraying it off with clean water, and then toweling it dry. What I didn't realize was they'd managed to peel off my headlight tape....
That week I drove though some monsoon-type thunderstorms. (These happen any time I pay to have the car washed.) By the time I noticed the tape was gone, the headlamp had water droplets condensed inside the lens. The light still worked fine, but now I was bummed. So I started shopping around online.
Last week I found a place that had a new one for $125 (plus UPS shipping from New England) and ordered it. Gulp. Now all I had to do was install it. How many sailors does it take to change a lightbulb, I wondered?
I was also going to do a few other things on the Beastie, including installing a new SPG9 hooter and wastegate actuator, so I planned to tackle several maintenance and repair chores at once. Since I needed access to the front of the engine compartment, I decided to remove the hood. Dave at SPG9 told me it was easy, so I decided to do it!
Two bolts are all that hold the hood on. Plus the hose that goes to the window washer nozzles, which I forgot. I undid the bolts and carefully lifted the hood away, feeling some resistance... I put it back and discovered I'd mangled a little tee fitting on the washer hose. No big loss. Disconnected the hose, then carried the now-free hood to a nearby pillow where I stood it against the wall. For future reference, folks... don't do this by yourself. The dang thing is HEAVY. I'm lucky I didn't get a hernia or drop the thing as I was carrying it. It would be MUCH easier with two people, I'm sure.
But now I could see the headlamp without the hood in the way. Cool. Typical of most of the stuff under the Beastie's hood, it was held on by two different kinds of fasteners. Two 10mm hex head bolts on the top in front, and two Torx screws on the back. I was glad it wasn't the LEFT headlamp, which is far less accessible in front of the intercooler! I unbolted the top hex bolts with a socket and ratchet, then took out one Torx screw... and then cursed.
The lower Torx screw was facing the battery, and my Torx screwdriver was too long to get to it. There was also some metal plumbing in the way, part of the air conditioning circuit. Sheesh. "Have any Swedish engineers ever heard the words "Maintenance Accessibility?!?" I shouted. Nobody answered. I scratched my head, looked again, and decided that rather than wrestle out the battery and heatshield to get to that stupid screw, I'd figure out how to loosen it some other way.
Sometimes a hex key (Allen wrench) will work in a Torx hole. I had an assortment, so decided to try that. My Craftsman Metric Hex Head Key Set had 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 millimeter sizes. 2.5... too small. 3? Still too small. 4? Too big. Where's the 3.5? DANG! Don't have one of those!
More scratching and staring. Why the heck didn't they use a straight slotted screw so I could just get the thing with an offset screwdriver? Hmmm. That gave me an idea. I took my #3 easy out, gripped it by the shaft with a pair of ViceGrips, and carefully pressed it into the Torx screw. A little pressure -- it turns! Yay! I managed to unscrew it the rest of the way with my fingers.
I carefully unplugged the bulb from the back of the assembly, resting it in its holder on the exhaust manifold. Then I eased the headlamp unit out the front of the car. I have no idea how I would have done this with the hood there!
The headlamp is mounted in a heavy plastic frame with adjuster knobs sticking out the back of it. How do I get this apart? I thought "maybe you just unscrew these knobs???" but wisely refrained, figuring that would just result in misaligned headlights later.
I checked the Saab shop manual, and it said to "prize the pieces apart."
"Prize?!" What the heck does that mean? There was a picture of Sven or somebody with a big screwdriver inserted into a hapless headlamp, so I thought, okay, here goes. I'm going to "prize" the snot out of the thing.
So I got a long flat-bladed screwdriver, applied some Newtonian leverage, and POP! one corner of the frame came free. Piece of cake! POP! POP! Two more. It was off.
I swapped the hardware from the back of the old headlamp to the back of the shiny new one, then popped on the adjuster frame. Ever see someone doing CPR? That's what I looked like on the floor of my garage, the headlamp face down on some padding, pressing the frame back onto the headlamp. It takes some serious pushing with both hands and a good percentage of your body weight to pop those things back on. You KNOW when you've got it right, though. No mistaking that loud pop.
Next I put the headlamp assembly back into the car. It was a little tricky, lining up the holes just right. There's a funky arrangement with plastic pieces that fit together just so -- if you aren't careful, it's not idiot proof and you can get it in wrong. I fiddled with it until I finally got it just right, then reinstalled the upper bolts. I decided to change out the Torx screws with some slotted brass sheetmetal screws of the same size -- just for NEXT time. My fervent hope is that I'll never have to replace it again, but if I'd put those Torx screws back, I'd be daring Fate to send me another rock in the face for sure.
I plugged the bulb in, turned on the headlights, and sure enough, it all worked fine. "Ta DAAAAAAA!" I exclaimed... and then jumped out of my skin as my wife, sneaking up behind me with a cold drink, said, "Good job!"
Anyway, the whole task took me about an hour. Not bad for this sailor.
- = M = -
'87 900T 159K
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