Question on 99 GL brakes

It sounds like you need to strip down and clean or replace the calipers.

The handbrake not working says that something is wrong in there!

The handbrake works on the front calipers - that little arm on the back pushes the inner bits of the caliper about using a cam.
Even though the arm itself is free, the bits inside could still be sticking or anything. If its an 84, on its original calipers, they are most likely going to be fairly full or gunge.

I have had success stripping mine down and just cleaning them out and reassembling (though I do have a big pile of spare bits which i used where necessary to replace bits that were rusty). It took about 4 hours to do the first one and about 2 to do each of the rest. You will have to bleed the brakes afterwards too.
You can also buy seal kits - but the only seals mine really needed were the dust cover.

If you dont fancy rebuilding them yourself then plenty of places sell replacement calipers - they also come up on ebay fairly often.

If you take one apart and look at it, it will all make sense! I dont know how so much gunge builds up inside calipers but it does!

The handbrake assembly on the back is supposed to be full of grease too (I presume), but after 20+ years saab grease just seems to turn into some kind of wied hard stuff - and the handbrake adjustor bit just stops working.

My cars are so much nicer now that they both have nice rebuilt front calipers! (my drum braked series landrover stopped better than the saab until i worked on them!)