toastedpickles Saab 900 lpt build

toastedpickles

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 there

dgt

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

toastedpickles

dgt wrote: »

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!

toastedpickles

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

toastedpickles

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?

toastedpickles

This seems doable so i might give this a go

Don'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.

toastedpickles

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!

toyotaavensis

Great to see an old 900 beng saved

toastedpickles

And I'm not even a quarter of the way done haha the 9-5 plans are on hold for the time being, I'm just enjoying that and getting stuck into this

toastedpickles

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

commited

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

toastedpickles

commited wrote: »

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 :P

commited

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?

toastedpickles

commited wrote: »

Will it be broken Saab parts?

You have your choice of broken 900 or broken 9-5 parts :pac: and a sticker that says SAAB = Something Always Almost Broken :pac:

toastedpickles

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 out

toastedpickles

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 it

Saabturbonut

nice bit of progress , your lucky the drive tunnels are solid all mine are gone as the story with most 900's

toastedpickles

Saabturbonut wrote: »

nice bit of progress , your lucky the drive tunnels are solid all mine are gone as the story with most 900's

Yeah i seen what can happen, scary looking stuff! :eek:

toastedpickles

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

toastedpickles

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 welder

Saabturbonut

for the gear knob , mine was faded as well so i glued the center back in place and put a decal i got off ebay over it instead , go on ebay and type in "Saab Resin Domed Bonnet / Boot Badge Decal" and some will come up

toastedpickles

Perfect, thanks!

toastedpickles

Arise thread!

So today i finally got the driveshafts out Turns out I needed to get the top balljoint out

This guy on the top, 17mm impact socket and a spanner the other side does this



But wait! Just when i thought it was coming out nicely



Typical :rolleyes: It doesn't even look knackered, and I was being gentle with it and all, anyways, get the two top bolts out and then with a bit of prying, and help from mr hammer again, out she comes!



Then simply pull the whole assembly out and that's it! I went a bit more and covered up the separated bits with food bags and cable ties to stop dirt and crap getting in, same on the other side



Next stop, getting the water hose off the turbo, then off with the main ground lead and then out she comes!

toastedpickles

I awoke to my mother saying "there's a gigantic bag outside for you!" So I get up and take a look, it's a box, within a box, and inside the box....



this thing puts any haynes manual to shame, orginally made/used by saab themselves so you can't get more exact than that

Anyways today was more of a disconnect more stuff, investigate and curse at people who have been near the car before myself.....lets start with the o2 sensor! Wire got cut, and there was stuff disconnected further up the line





Things that make you go hmmm!

After this I drained the oil and removed the filter, and then undone the three nuts for the oil filter housing, 12mm for them





Covered this with a bag and tied it up

After this i tackled the left engine mount, bit difficult this one, alternators in the way and i don't particularly want to remove it



An hour later.....



One nut out, tomorrow I think I'll take off :pac:

YbFocus

Just on that book, could they not have said 1985-1993??

toastedpickles

YbFocus wrote: »

Just on that book, could they not have said 1985-1993??

Nope! Because things got changed in 1990 i think

toastedpickles

Todays update

Got the left engine mount loosened, turns out theres a nut below the one I was at yesterday :rolleyes:
Next stop the bumper

166man

Hey...eh Pickles there, how ya planning on putting it back together?


As I have learnt, taking things apart is always easier than putting together... :v

I is wanting updates on 9-5 too...!

toastedpickles

166man wrote: »

Hey...eh Pickles there, how ya planning on putting it back together?


As I have learnt, taking things apart is always easier than putting together... :v

I is wanting updates on 9-5 too...!

The same way i took it apart but backwards! And they're updates over on the thread sure, just waiting on my cash muneh to come in

pheelay

For reassembly, just read the thread backwards