This weekend was spent finishing up some detail work on our seat mounts, followed by priming and painting the now 36-point cage. Yep, it ties into the bodyshell in at least 36 spots. There are lots of little tabs here and there, as well as gussets that tie the cage into the pillars, the seat mounts and the front suspension. Our goal was to have one tough little Saab and we think we accomplished that.
The seat mounts have been welded into the floor and the sill bar of the cage. The rear mount is in the same location as the factory rear points, while we moved the front crossbar back about three inches.
The cage has now been primed. With almost all of the windows out, we can get very good coverage in some of the tricky areas.
We used 18 cans of Antelope Brown to match the cage to the bodyshell. That is as many cans as it took to paint the entire car. Painting a cage involves a lot of waste, as only a portion of the spray hits the tubing.
The process of painting a roll cage is one of the more frustrating things to do. It’s very easy to ‘paint yourself into a corner’ and rub against freshly painted parts.
In other news, our local Harbor Freight store was having a sale on utility lights, just $7 for a 55-watt unit. We mounted ours next to the license plate and it’s now a high-powered reverse light.
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