Welp, looks like the Saab's engine has to come out

"Urambo Tauro" (urambotauro) 06/11/2018 at 12:00 • Filed to: saab 900, wrenching, project

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I had a feeling this was coming.

Did I? Nah, I’m just saying that. But one of things that’s been nagging at me this whole time is wondering if we’re wasting our time busting knuckles on hard-to-reach items. If there is ANY reason to pull the engine, I’d like to confront that eventuality ASAP. It would provide much better access to things like the belts that we already changed ...

This weekend, we found the excuse that we were “looking for”.

As part of our “what was that noise?” investigation, we scoped the cylinders and pulled the valve cover. I was half-expecting to see maybe a partially-broken valve spring or something. No such (bad) luck. Truth is, we didn’t find anything catastrophic that calls for engine rebuild/replacement. But we did find one thing that’s going to be an engine-out procedure.

The timing chain. Or more specifically, the guides. (But yeah, might as well replace the chain & all that while we’re at it.)

The top guide, attached to the underside of the valve cover, didn’t look all that bad. But we managed to catch a glimpse of the tensioner guide, which the chain had worn through so deeply that the pins were sinking below the surface of the guide:

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Now, there’s a clever trick to replacing the chain that involves pulling the valve cover, and splicing the new chain into the old one before turning the engine to feed the new chain through before removing the old one and reconnecting the new one’s master link. But that technique doesn’t give us access to the guides, so we’re not doing that.

What we’re doing is pulling the timing cover, which apparently means pulling the engine. What is this, an Audi? No, it’s a Saab, which also means that the gearbox, bolted to the bottom of the engine instead of behind or next to it, is coming out too.

Now I really wish we hadn’t spent so much time busting knuckles against the firewall to replace the drive belts and oil pump seals. But so long as the engine has to be pulled, we might as well take the opportunity to do a bunch of other preventative maintenance items in order to avoid pulling the engine or transmission again for a LONG time.

Since the timing chain is getting changed anyway... why not dig just a little further and throw a new head gasket on before installing the new chain? At 132,000 miles, it might not be a bad idea to change the water pump while we’re at it. Might as well refresh the engine-to-gearbox “oil pan” gasket too, before it starts leaking. It’s already drained of oil and coolant, so we’re already part-way there.

The more I think about it, the more this worn guide seems to explain everything. The initial “shattering” noise that quickly went away could very well have been bits of guide material falling down. And the subsequent “rattling” that seemed to get worse as the engine warmed up may have actually been timing chain slap.

Of course, this will add a significant delay towards getting this car on the road again, but I think it’s worth it. Good thing we exposed a weak point before he started driving it around; this’ll give us a good excuse to freshen some other things up instead of crossing our fingers and hoping that the old gaskets continue to hold up.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Urambo Tauro 06/11/2018 at 12:08

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IT’LL HAVE TO COME OUT! ALL THE... BITS OF IT!

Urambo Tauro > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/11/2018 at 12:17

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WE’RE GOING TO OPERATE!!

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Urambo Tauro 06/11/2018 at 12:29

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GOING TO OPERATE... GOING TO OPERATE...OPERATE...

Urambo Tauro > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/11/2018 at 12:40

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NO! NO I AM NOT THE SAAB SPECIALIST

YES! YES I AM

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Urambo Tauro 06/11/2018 at 12:44

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WE FORGOT THE HAYNESTHETIC!

HAYNESTHETIC!

HAYNESTHETIC!

Urambo Tauro > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/11/2018 at 12:52

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NUUUUUUHS! NUUUUUUHS!

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Urambo Tauro 06/11/2018 at 13:00

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WHERE’s THE BLOODY LANCIA?

functionoverfashion > Urambo Tauro 06/11/2018 at 13:40

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Can I slightly change the subject?

I’ll start by saying, this is a great project, and I wish you the best of luck in bringing it to a successful completion; it seems like you will do exactly that, and I applaud your efforts to save a cool car. I wish I had the time and space to take on something like this. Cheers to that.

What I want to say is, this is an excellent illustration of why it was so hard for Ron to sell so many of his cars, no matter how cool they were. Yeah, some probably needed less work than yours, but more likely, they ALL needed about four times more work than he thought they did. It takes a LOT of work to bring an abandoned car back to a safe, reliable state. The whole time that story was circulating around, I just felt bad for the guy: he had bought these cars, most of them anyway, probably in running condition. But then they sat. Outdoors. And years went by, to the point that most of them were barely worth their value in scrap metal, let alone anything approaching normal used-car prices.

I have a neighbor with several abandoned cars in his yard, and he’s got a mini-fridge out by the road right now with a FREE sign on it. Who doesn’t want a free mini-fridge? Literally everyone, when they see what else he’s got sitting around in his yard. Clearly, if it worked, he wouldn’t give it away for free. Why he’s not throwing it on the roof of his shed with all the bikes his kids have outgrown is another question, but for some reason he’s giving it away, and yet no one will take it.

I think the same was true with Ron’s cars. Yeah, one example might have needed minimal work, but looking around at how he treated the whole fleet (which is to say, he completely neglected them), why wouldn’t you assume the very worst?

It seems like you paid a reasonable price for what you got. And I can’t wait to see this back on the road. May this also be a lesson for all those who aspire to save a car from a field somewhere.

In any case, seriously, please don’t take this as a dig against you in any way - quite the opposite - it’s just that every time you update this project, I think of all the other cars that came out of Ron’s yard. I wonder how many of them are as lucky as your Saab, to have someone regularly wrenching on them, working to bring them back to life. Not as many as we would hope, I suspect.

Urambo Tauro > functionoverfashion 06/11/2018 at 14:37

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Yeah, this is reminding me of my truck, where instead of being a great deal, it ended up being a fair price, considering all the work that turned out to be necessary.

It’s a good thing that my brother calculated a decent budget for this, one that goes well beyond just the brakes, tires, fuel pump and battery that we knew right from the beginning that it was going to need. I can only hope that Ron’s other customers knew what they were getting into on their projects...

I haven’t even shared with you guys yet about THE RUST. Fortunately, Saab did some good things in the name of rust prevention, but there are some areas that do indeed need attention before this is ready to become a daily driver (spoiler alert: the rust repair that this thing needs isn’t even unique to it sitting for ~13 years; it’s apparently a typical weak point on these cars). For now though, the focus is on getting it driveable, so that if he needs to send it to a welder, it can be driven in and out of the shop without hassle.

I wasn’t expecting to have to pull the engine, but as drastic as it sounds, it’s not like we have to rebuild it or anything. Even the plan to change the head gasket is just preventative maintenance at this point. If my brother wanted to, he could get away with a new chain and guides. But we’re serious about making it a reliable car, and he’s willing to make that investment.