1986 SAAB 900T 16V
This is the story of our 1986 SAAB 900 Turbo which we have owned since 1989. We bought it to replace an aging 1976 SAAB 99 which didn't have long enough seat belts in the rear for the kid's booster seats. The 900T has been a great car and we moved it with us to Holland when we lived there from 1992 to 1994. Now it's back in Canada.
Contrary to what you might expect it hasn't been that expensive to service although there have been some classic problems that probably shouldn't have happend. Our SAAB now has over 285,000 km and is on it's second Turbo and has just had an engine job. The first Turbo died after we lost all our oil in the Rocky Mountains. This happened because the PCV valve failed open and the Turbocharger blew the oil out the filler cap. The lack of oil caused the Turbo bearings to fail and the rest of the oil, under pressure from the pump went out the tailpipe. We managed to make it the rest of the 400km home by just adding oil and marvelling at the lack of tailgating by other traffic as they stayed well back to avoid the oil smoke.
A new Turbocharger and we were back on the road. However, the missing oil had damaged two rod bearings so 2 years later I had to pull the engine to find the cause of the knocking and rattling. Found broken engine mounts and replaced the clutch and put the engine back. Alas, the knock was still there so we parked the vehicle for a year and waited for a point in time where I could rebuild the engine.
That's been done now and with the engine rebuilt and re-installed I started driving the car and breaking in the engine. It ran well for about 200km and then started running very rough. I went through all the diagnostics and finally decided it had to the the Air Mass Meter. By then the rich mixture caused by the defective AMM had added more than 2 litres of gasoline to the oil and the thinned out oil took out the Turbocharger again. I suspect that the trashed rod bearings had also significantly lowered the oil pressure so that the bearings on the Turbo were already starting to wear. After only two years driving it had developed a noticeable whine.
So now, with the new Turbocharger, new AMM and assorted other goodies the 900T runs really well. It no longer stalls when first started cold. The Air Idle Control motor has been cleaned and tested with a custom microprocessor PWM controller and works perfectly so I know it's in good shape. I think the O2 sensor is reacting too slowly as I have a slight variation in idle but there is also a slight vacuum leak in behind the dash.
With the dash out I found that the leak was inside the rotary vacuum switch and since one of the mounting posts for the hose assembly has snapped off it's time for a replacement. More on that when it arrives from the dealer.
One of the classic SAAB problems is that the heater vents become very loose and the open/close flapper won't sit open by itself. With the fan set to high speed the flappers blow closed. So while I had the dash out, I thought I'd take a look at solving that problem.
I pried out the vent assemblies by pressing in the bits of plastic at the back and then popping out the assemblies. The air directors were also pried out and then the whole works went into the dishwasher to get rid of the crap that had collected.
Next I decided that there needed to be two approaches to tightening up the mechanisms. First I used a heat gun to soften the plastic at the back where the flapper pivots and when it was just slightly soft I bent it back in. The flapper now sits tighter. I also tried a bit of heat shrink tubing on the pin of the lever that moves the flapper and that seems to help too.
Finally I added some bicycle inner tube patch material as a small washer to which the air directors pivoted against. This has the added advantage of pressing against the flapper control making it even stiffer and less likely to turn on it's own. You can see the white heatshrink on the small pin and the rubber inner tube patch on the pivot. The controls now work just like new.
With a heater valve replacement in Holland and the occasional light bulb service and a replacement signal light lever, the dashboard has been off the vehicle a few times already. It shows in the wear and tear on the mounting points. They are all broken. I amazed that such an important part would have been made so thin and cheesy by SAAB. That's an area where greater strength would have been an asset.
So I bought some ABS sheet goods and I'm busy building stronger brackets. Pictures to follow including ones where the light bulbs go. I replaced them all with new ones (#73) from Canadian Tire. My Spectro Light Bulb catalog lists them as 15,000 hr bulbs. Hopefully I'll never have to replace them again.
The Clutch has developed a very annoying squeak over the years and it's become unbearable. Since the dashboard was out anyway I removed the lower kick panel, the heat distributor and crawled under to remove the pedal. Amazing how the metal to metal contact and design has created such a long slot.
Obviously this needs to be repaired so I MIG welded up the hole and redrilled it to 5/16" and then used a rat tail file to just barely enlarge it so the pin would fit. Unfortunately the clutch master cylinder rod end also has some elongation but it's not as bad as the pedal so it will have to wait until a new master cylinder is needed. The repaired clutch pedal is so much better and other than the play in the master cylinder rod the movement is smoother and best of all the squeak is gone. Again though, a bad design by SAAB. The slightly melted rubber in the repaired pedal is due to heat and that's where the return spring goes. I haven't bothered replacing that. I've used liberal amounts of white grease and some lubricating oil.
