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toastedpickles Saab 900 lpt build
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08-06-2014 10:54am#1So I've went and bought another saab :rolleyes:
A 1991 saab 900 low pressure turbo, doesn't have much to show off about but it seems to be a very "all business end" kind of car, it gives my 9-5 a run for it's money to say the least, being the same age as myself (23) and having been layed up for the last two years it's gathered a bit of rust in places, the previous owner has tried to repair it, but it still needs work, 90% looks to be surface rust, and the other 10% I'm going to have to get it cut out and replaced, other than that, it needs a good service, new coolant piping, a headlining, electrics sorted out, and a respray/ alloy refurb, the rest is just small little things, near gearknob, dashlights and so on.
Just by going on a quick inspection this is what I've found, I'm sure the next two years will throw up plenty, the end result is to have it ready for my 25th birthday, so it's a long term birthday present of sorts :pac: So my first mission is to find a manual for this car, after a bit of searching I found this http://www.amazon.com/Saab-900-Valve-Service-Manual/dp/0837603137 from what i seen it looks pretty in depth, so I'm going to invest in it when i have the money, along with a haynes one for it and bodywork, then strip and rust proof the car, after that, who knows
So pics!
Needs headlining
Surprisingly enough this is the only lacquer peel on the whole car
And now for my favourite bit :pac:
Made me giggle like a kid when i seen this first
And the bidness end of things
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So, day 1, today began with me hunting for rust, and it didn't take long for me to find it, lets see how deep the rabbit hole goes
I'm going to throw just about everything in on this build as there's feck all in depth guides on how to do things with this car, today i done what i could without the use of books or manuals, so until i get one, I'll just do what i can
Also drown every nut in wd40/plusgas, or whatever you have
First order of business was removing the battery, so get a 10 mm spanner or socket and take off the negative and then the positive
And rust!
So i'm debating weather to cut it out or leave it in place and douse it in kurust
Next on the list to take off, the washer tank, they're known to rot at the bottom of the tanks so just to be safe
Here is said water tank
To get the tank out first you need to remove a bracket, there's a 10mm nut inside the engine bay
And then the bracket comes out
Then disconnect the horn, again 10mm
And then pull out the tank, and disconnect the pump, this can be a bit of a pain, but if you turn the pump sideways you can get at it easy enough
So i decided to have a looksee inside, I shouldn't have
So i decided while i was it to check the coolant, again, I shouldn't have
Rust...in the coolant So that's being drained and binning the pipes and replace them with silicone hoses
More in the next post
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After all this i decided to start tackling the rust, which there is quiet a lot, I have a dremel so I used that to grind off the surface rust on where i could get to so I'll carry on with that tomorrow
After removing the water tank my suspicions were confirmed, it was rather rotted
so I'll have to cut it out or something
Along with this at the back of the engine
So I went to have a look at the suspension set up, again, very different to modern set ups, and rather rusty
More rust, I'm thinking of just replacing the whole hub/driveshaft assembly
Here's a section I was working on, I've a feeling the car will begin to look more like this over the next few weeks
After this, I looked at the doors, and was greeted by, yep, more rust
So off with the door cards to investigate further0 -
You'l need a T20 hex bit for this
Start by removing the screw in the door latch cover
Then remove the covering behind it to show the rest of the bolts
And then undo the rest of the screws and take off the door card, but before you get it off, there is one obstacle in the way, the lock, simply unscrew this and take the door card off
And result
And the verdict? Well a new door might be in order if I can't sort this
Some rust spots are in hard to reach places, like this one
There's still some rust spots here and there but a good dollop of kurust should sort that
The left door wasn't too bad bar the bottom
This was the worst of it
And a dodgy filler job
Something fell into the back, put my hand on the floor, wet floor, not looking forward to pulling out the interior
And more rust under the body
Went to remove the fuse box and some corroded wiring greeted me, so I called it a day
More fun tomorrow!0 -
So today i decided to buy a wire bit for a drill, for a euro, courtesy of the local motor factors
And got to tackling this
The drill i have isn't great if I'm honest, but it got through most of it,
Halfway through
And this is as good as i can get it, gona run a layer of kurust over it tomorrow
Ended up going through a few sander bits for my dremel, and a wire bit, so I'm in need of a new "proper" drill
So I intended on removing the bumper and so on to get access to the radiator to drain the coolant
Blasted these with wd40 and tried to take them off, with a 7mm socket the first one had other ideas :rolleyes:
The rest decided they didn't want to come out due to rust, so I moved onto taking the front off, and the air intake
Take off the main grille with a t20 bit
Then move onto the lights, this is what you have to disconnect
Then begin disconnecting the plugs, some can be a bit of a pain to get but its doable
Lable everything for later on Sadly some connectors are a bit worse for wear
After this undo two 8mmm bolts on the headlight and pull the whole unit out, put it to one side for safe keeping, next the issue of the wipers, sadly these wipers have seen much better days, perished blades and rusted holders, I'll try do something with them but i don't have much hope
Do the same with the other light, disconnecting any wires or anything in the way the car should look similar to this now!
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After the headlights were taken out i had a looksee for rust, and I wasn't disappointed, well I was, but you get me
This part will need replacing, when it comes to it, I might just use solid steel instead of sheet metal or whatever, strength and all
Same on the other side
After this the air intake system was coming out, Also I found this beside it, does anyone have any idea of what it does or what its for? Seems to be some sort of ignition
Anyways the air system, there's a piece on the side that comes out with a t20 hex bit, then undo the jubilee clip and jiggle it off, next the maf and hosework for it, undo more jubilee clips and wiggle that off
Looks like this
Then onto the air filter, this was a bit of a pig, but then most things are rusted on the car, this is secured in with a bracket, so get a 10mm socket and away you go, loosen it enough till you can pull the whole filter and housing out, there's a good deal of space there so I might look at getting a different airbox made up
Then take off the bracket and that's your airbox out, the bracket appears to be zinc plated so I might get that redone, or attempt to do it myself, No idea how to plate metal so that's a learning curve in itself
After this it started raining so I called it a day, tomorrow I'll drain the coolant and get stuck into the pipework for it0 -
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Should be great when it's done... but you've certainly got your work cut out for you.
I didn't find Kurust to be all that great to be honest. Maybe you need to use it in combination with some other treatments. I started a thread a while back on this subject and was suggested to use zinc primer on top of this.0 -
Is that keyhole thing for the alarm?
Yeah it's an aftermarket alarm apparentlyShould be great when it's done... but you've certainly got your work cut out for you.
I didn't find Kurust to be all that great to be honest. Maybe you need to use it in combination with some other treatments. I started a thread a while back on this subject and was suggested to use zinc primer on top of this.
I was told the same, but I want to get it sandblasted at some stage, so it's more for a temporary fix, I have zinc primer but it's grey, so i don't want the car covered in grey blotches, might end up with it though0 -
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Shall do, can't do anything today due to the rain, cars covered though, thanks to granny picklesGet some kurust on the minor stuff.
How's the chassis? got me a car cover
From what I can make out the chassis seems to be good, like i said somewhere else, if it's not, then game over sadly I don't know of anyone who would repair it, or I might end up doing a jozi on the whole thing 0 -
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toastedpickles wrote: »sadly no i cant gona have to pay someone to do that
I can and have put many plates into cars, hell we've spaceframed the front of a 180 before 0 -
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Jaypers such a day! So today started off with me swearing at the sky for raining, and making my car get new rust on where I had grinded away rust and forgot to coat it, lesson learned there I also started taking out the aftermarket alarm and took out the radiator
After much giving out thanks to my gran, I got this
So that's as good as my coverage is going to get, got it in halfords and its the best they got so it better work :P
Anyways during the rain falls I was out doing a bit of tidying up/re derusting on the car, i covered areas in kurust and it seems to have done the job nicely
Next I drained the "coolant" Take a 24mm deep socket and unscrew the plug
This is some of came out
So i let that drain out and carried on removing the coolant tank, undo the jubilee clips and then a 13mm bolt holds the tank in place
And the tank out
Treated that area too, wire brush and kurust
After that I removed the larger pipe and I'll replace it the inside was fake tan colour :P
After this it was the removal of this "alarm" thing,
Then I traced the wiring for it back to under the fuse box, this was a rather happy moment, I previously thought the corroded wires were part of the main loom, but nope, part of the alarm system, so I'm gona trace it right back and gut it out0 -
Pulled the alarm out and traced the wires back
I'm not very good or knowledgeable with wiring, but whoever done this job should be shot
There's two fuses in that white thing
Goes in under the fuse box
There was one blue wire that went somewhere else, so i traced it back to the slam panel to this thing
So i cut the wire and removed it
While I was there I removed this as well
Didn't get the whole thing off as it broke my hex bit
Push in the metal clip and pull it out
After this I started at the radiator, first the fan has to come out, there's a good bit of stuff to get out of the way
First i took off the coolant hose and moved that aside, then onto the starter motor, at least I think that's it, it lead to the distributor so it must be
And disconnect it from the distributor and place it to one side
Then take off the fan with a t20 bit, there's three bits, two on top and one on the bottom, when i got it out the fan seems to be knackered so I'll invest in a new one
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Next on the list was this cnut of a thing
it was rusted together and broke two of my bits :mad:
So, out with the dremel and I cut it off
The pipe itself seems to be connected to another pipe so I'll find out what it joins up to
The radiator's held in by two 10mm bolts, but to get the clearance you need to take the turbo pipe out
Same on the other side, and with it gone, you have miles of room
And then just pull the rad out, and clean up any spillage from it and call it a day!
After now I don't really know where to go as I need to get a manual and a few bits, I might invest in some more rust proofing and see what happens form there!0 -
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Some great work here, good man for getting stuck in Seems like you need to get an angle grinder with a knot wheel for some of that stuff though!
Thanks I do need and angle grinder, but I've 0 money at the minute, I'll just buy a cheap yoke and go at it when i can, I want to get the engine out first, which half of it I've no idea what I'm doing really need a manual, again when I have money
2 years to do it all so plenty of time! but sooner the better0 -
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So thanks to a very helpful individual on another forum to get the engine out this is the general preocedure
- take off bonnet ( 2 10mm bolts )
- Drain coolant/remove rad ( done )
- disconnect gear linkage
- disconnect exhaust
- disconnect oil cooler
- disconnect power steering
- disconnect/remove air intake ( done )
- Remove driveshafts from gearbox
Today I didn't really do a whole lot, more rust proofing and more "yay!" moments
I began by finding what wires from the aftermarket alarm went where to the fuse board, turns out they're soldered in with other wires, not sure what they do, but I'll look tomorrow, me thinks an auto electrician will be needed for this
After deciding to leave this for another day/person, I decided to take a look at the rear wheel arches, by this time it was getting to evening time so i only got a look at one side, a lot of surface rust, and a lot of kurust was used, seemed to do the trick though!
So onto wire brushing and this decided to fall off from up around the suspension mount so i put it aside for later
And here is said location, the flat washer piece
After i checked the rear axle, hoped that it wasn't rusted through, and it wasn't
Out with the wire brush and cleaned it up as best i could on that side, stuck on some more kurust on it to see if it done anything and it did!
So plans are in place to buy a drum of waxoyl and more of this kurust stuff and use them as a combination treatment
A few more bits i got with it
Cleaned up the wheel arch due to a bit of rust i seen and began removing it, it turned out to be a bit bigger than i thought
Two holes in the boot need to be addressed too
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Do you have a multimeter dude? I wouldn't tackle anymore wiring stuff without one (oh and make sure battery is disconnected ) €10 will get you one from ebay that will fit the bill.
Regarding surface rust on the axle etc - I wouldn't be too concerned about those bits, generally made from fairly thick stuff that won't rust through, the main areas of concern would be the sheet steel, especially any place that 2 sheets meet, mounting points etc.0 -
Do you have a multimeter dude? I wouldn't tackle anymore wiring stuff without one (oh and make sure battery is disconnected ) €10 will get you one from ebay that will fit the bill.
Regarding surface rust on the axle etc - I wouldn't be too concerned about those bits, generally made from fairly thick stuff that won't rust through, the main areas of concern would be the sheet steel, especially any place that 2 sheets meet, mounting points etc.
No multimeter sadly, I've literally got a socket set and a few pliers and basic tools, I'm trying to get one thing a week, that's the only way I can actually afford it
First thin that was taken out was the battery 0 -
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Yeah i know :pac: i know its only surface rust but i want it gone, looks nasty to meJaysus you have some project on your hands there. The rust on the axle and suspension components are nothing to worry about. It's only surface rust from the car being idle and is nothing to worry about.
The rust on the body would be of far more concern to me. A welder would come in very handy for a lot of that stuff but maybe for the more structurally important areas, a body shop might be the best bet.
Also IMO, your wasting your time with kurust. In my experience any time I used it the rust would be back out through it in no time. I have found that it only covers the rust and doesn't really convert it.
The best thing for the surface rust imo is bilt hamber deox gel followed by bilt hamber electrox primer.
Well I'll leave the kurust for a few days, and see what happens, if it doesn't work I'll invest in the bilt hamber, trying to work on a budget here I have a few offers with welding and help regards the front end so we'l see how that turns out, taking it one step at a time here 0 -
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toastedpickles wrote: »Yeah i know :pac: i know its only surface rust but i want it gone, looks nasty to me
Well I'll leave the kurust for a few days, and see what happens, if it doesn't work I'll invest in the bilt hamber, trying to work on a budget here I have a few offers with welding and help regards the front end so we'l see how that turns out, taking it one step at a time here
Scrap off a bit of the kurust in a few day where it's gone black. I bet the rust will still be there underneath 0 -
So away from the yays, and into the "ahhhh crap" moments
Didn't get a whole lot done today as thursdays are generally busy anyways
Heres what I did get done, tackled the right hand brake setup and general rust hunting
Start off by loosening the wheel nuts on both front wheels, and then bit by bit lift the car into the air, I never thought I'd see another saab in this position in my yard :rolleyes:
The predecessor, pretty much in the same spot?
Anyways, bidness time
Started tackling a rust patch that grew a bit, so I may cut that out and get some metal welded in there when i feel confident enough
After this i cleaned the wheel arch with a wire brush and a pot scrubber, seems to have been layered with something but most of the dirt and so on pulled it away
Pull this off just to get the whole arch, 2 10mm nuts, drown them in wd40
After this it was onto the caliper and disc, I had intended on getting the hub off but someone else had other ideas, took off the wheel and went to take the locking pin out and this greeted me
Yokes more rounded than a circle :mad: So I'll attack that tomorrow with all the cutting power i have
Anyways, onto the rest of things, Took the calliper off, 16mm nuts if i remember correctly, and just keep at them until they come out, halfway though the brother came out and attempted so brother pickles about to be in action :pac:
Calliper nearly off
And the calliper off, I rested it on the A bracket behind the disc, next the shoe for the pads, both 19mm
And the disc as it stands now
After this I loosened up the remaining nuts around, ball joints and steering and called it at that,
Then I went under the car to figure out how to start disconnecting the exhaust/gear linkage/box etc, and found this, any idea anyone?
More questions, when disconnecting the exhaust, should i disconnect it from the turbo or on the joins at the bottom?
Anyways, after this I got sick of getting nowhere, most of the nuts were torqued on to an inch of their life, air tools would've been great but we got there in the end, tomorrow I'll attack that rounded bit and see from there0 -
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Okays....
The rust: cut that out and weld in a new piece
Forget wd40, plusgas or nothin'
The stud: Get the correct size bit, heat the surrounding area with a blowtorch and use it with an impact driver. It might take it. Failing that, drill and tap time etc
For the mystery cooler, that looks like an oil cooler to me
AS for disconnecting the exhaust, remove it from the downpipe don't remove it from the turbo. Cut those 3 bolts off with a grinder, they'll be seized solid
The rust I'll attack when i learn how to weld
Nowhere around here has plusgas so i may travel further afield
The stud, I'm just going to drill the thing out, I'm getting new discs anyways
Mystery cooler not mysterious anymore :pac:
The downpipe it is! the bolts aren't seized though so ill get them
Thank ya! 0 -
Small update today
A special mention goes out to this set up
And my dremel tool, best 50 euro I ever spent, it's really starting to prove its worth
I finally got the pin out
And away came the disc
After this i took a 13mm bit and disconnected the exhaust
And after this I checked the driveshaft holes for rot, solid as a brick, happy days 0 -
So I've began following this guide to removing the engine
http://www.saabcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64956
I spent the majority of today trying to get this cursed thing out, it ended up breaking
Here's what I'm dealing with
Literally at my wits end with it, what im thinking of doing is disconnecting the rectangular bracket piece to see if that does anything, after that I'm out of ideas
Someone posted this over on a saab forum so maybe this, or drilling it out will do it "I also typically remove that linkage coupler WITH the transmission. As suggested, I typically put the car in 4th, loosen the clamp, then put it in third rapidly and the shaft pops right out".
Anyone got any ideas of their own?0 -
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This seems doable so i might give this a goDon't mess with the taper pin, its very hard to remove that thing even with the engine removed from the car. Just loosen the 13mm bolt that clamps on the shift linkage. When you reinstall the transmission you will need to readjust the shift linkage but this is much easier than trying to remove the taper pin with the engine in the car.
Before you loosen the clamp, clean off the shift linkage, put a splash of paint on the point where the two shafts connect, and paint a line along the shaft. These marks will help get the two shafts close to the right position when you reassemble.
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So! After yesterdays nightmare fun and games I ended up just disconnecting the couplings 2 10mm bolts and a bit of gentle persuasion and it comes out
After this I went after the power steering tensioner, which is located above the gearlinkage you just undone, looking from above it's below the wiring loom, you need to get the belt off instead of draining the power steering fluid apparently, again going by the guide i posted up
Cut the cable ties away so you have more room to get to the tensioner
And here's what you're after
Disconnect the lowest nut with a 13mm socket and take the whole thing out, I didn't go near the other nut on the longer thread
So what the lovely man in the guide I'm following didn't mention was that there is another bolt holding the cog in place, therefore you can't remove the belt, its located just above the tensioner you just took out, again with a 13mm take it out, the belt wheel becomes slack and you can remove the belt, hurrah!
Just move the wheel with your hand towards the left of the engine and undo the belt
Belt looks a bit used so I'm gona replace it
After this it said to bleed the clutch, don't have a kit so i may get one but you do it here
After this i went to disconnect the main ground wire off the front of the gearbox, but there something in the way, so i may get it out of the way
I need to somehow get that bracket with the pipe out and see from there, it connects up to the turbo and to one of the radiator hoses
After this I went after the throttle cable, 13mm will do the job for this, undo it at the spring and disconnect the oil filler pipe bracket, 10mm spanner does the job for this one
The spring
And the bracket
Put the cable to one side and get back under the car to undo the speedo cable bracket, 12mm socket for this
And the bracket out
Next post ahoy!0 -
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After this yank the speedo cable out, or in my case it needed some persuasion with a vice grips, don't use a load of pressure though, just enough to get it loose
Located here
This is what you're after
After this, going along with the guide I was following it said to disconnect the connectors for the fuel injectors, leave the injectors alone just disconnect the loom form them, number them so you know which goes into which
Theres two bits I've yet to disconnect, partly because I don't know what they are, so I can't label them, one's just behind the fuel rail, and the other is buried under a heap of pipes
The first one
And the buried one
So if anyone has any idea what they could be I'd appreciate it
After this, disconnect the wires from the alternator, again label everything 8mm for the small ones and 13mm for the big one, Where I can I put the nuts back on so I wont loose them
While you're here disconnect the oil pressure sender, mine looks a bit corroded so I'll get a new one
After this go over to the distributor and disconnect the central pin, I'd already done this but its the one from the centre
I keep intending on making a list of stuff i have to do so i figured I'd keep it handy where i usually am :pac:
Not much left to do!
After this i went to loosen the nuts on the oil cooler. to get to it properly I took off the side trim, it just slides off i found
It varying sizes, with one head rounded, so i might disconnect it somewhere else if it can be
Also this vacuum line was hanging loose, I think it goes here but I'm not too sure
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Looks like you're making good progress. For the connecters you don't know what they do, just label the connector and corresponding plug with the same thing i.e. AAA
Slowly but surely! not much left to do Never thought of that
Congrats on the 1600th post in my thread :pac: I'll send out the prize soon :P0 -
toastedpickles wrote: »Congrats on the 1600th post in my thread :pac: I'll send out the prize soon :P
Will it be broken Saab parts? 0 -
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Small update today
Removed the right brake disc/ caliper, the disc was fairly lipped so again, new ones are due
Got the loom out too, everything labelled accordingly
After this i loosened the jubilee clips on the cv boots, one however had been cable tied, so that was cut off
Here's what's behind the boot the cv cup
After this i called it a day, you're supposed to knock out the tow lower nuts on the balljoints so I'll get to that next time, as for yanking the hub out, well that's another story i'm sure we'l find out0 -
Another small update today
Relabelled everything/ connections etc in pen
Removed the battery tray and de rusted it, to remove the tray you remove the 3 nuts from under the car
Stuck two coats of waxoyl on it
Then onto the driveshafts, this is the last bit i need to get out and it has me stumped, in the guide I'm following it says;
Undo the jubilee clips away from the cv boots - Done
And pull the hub away from the car, this is where I've gotten stuck, I'm guessing theres more to it than that, by the looks of it I still need to disconect the steering and suspension mounts, but I don't want to go mad and end up doing something i didn't need to
The steering
And the suspension
I'm fairly sure these have to come off too, but if anyone else knows for certain i'd really appreciate it0 -
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Carrying on from today, I managed to get the right hand balljoint out, with a bit of persuasion and some help from mr hammer :pac:
Lower balljoint nuts removed, to do this, get the nut to the edge of the screw, hit it with a hammer so the screw comes out, remove the nut and use a punch to get the nut out
Then pull the hub out, this might take a bit of effort as it did with mine, but one the ball joint is near out, hit it with a hammer and out it comes, then pull it out a bit more
The joint out
Then i repositioned the hub to be straight and pulled outwards, again referring to the guide, the cv boot/cv cup are should start moving and it has
Before
After
As you can see the boot has moved a good bit so after this I'm stumped
But with a bit of patience I'll get there 0 -
So again a little update, and the last for the next while, on hollerdays next week
Got the last connector out from the loom, so the loom is completely out of the way
Rustproofed the battery tray, and done a little refurb on the gearknob piece, the acrylic bit the gear numbers on it was a bit scuffed, seems to have been black at some stage, does anyone know where I can get a glass or acrylic bit made like this?
Then you have the housing for it which was a bit rusty on the edges
Out with the dremel and sanded it all off, then i figured I'd use my old astra rattle can, it's a black with some "glitter" though it, so sprayed up the housing, looks black but shines well in the sun
The next problem was that the inside of the gear knob had separated from the handle, so out with sump glue and sealed it all back together :pac:
The next and last thing I've to disconnect before the engine gets lifted, is this
That bracket is not budging from the pipe its attached to, the pipe is attached to the turbo and lower rad hose so I'm guessing it's safe to take off?
Anyways, two or three steps away from my first ever engine removal, never thought I'd see this happen
After this if i have the money, I'm going to get a bently manual, which is essentially the workshop manuals from saab themselves
So in no order
Bently manual
Bilit hamber rust proofing (proper stuff)
Le mans blue spray paint
Cutting discs for the angle grinder
New metal plates for the rotted parts
A welder0 -
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