Hazel the Saab - 2004 9-3

I cleaned up the '07 anniversary wheels and was able to sell them for a reasonable price, so that's good news. I think the 17x7.5" wheels would have been too heavy for my lowly little "t" Linear motor.  And getting rid of extra wheels makes my wife happy, so I won some bonus points!
 

Next project is removing the timing cover and replacing the broken balance shaft arm and tensioner. I also will check the crank seal and have a replacement ready to go. I'm trying to balance taking care of the yard and house projects, so I've been working on getting our lawn looking better and trying to get on top of the weeds and dandelions before they get too out of control. And I have to trim out the main floor of the house, because we've been without trim since the flooring project in Feb. Also working on catching up on regular maintenance on the DDs.  So I have made some progress, just not on this project. Hoping to change that in the near future!

I was this many days old when I realized you live 30 min from me!  Woody actually lives between us too!

#CTGRMERSUNITE haha.

Carry on!

Loweguy5 said:

I was this many days old when I realized you live 30 min from me!  Woody actually lives between us too!

#CTGRMERSUNITE haha.

Carry on!

I think we have a pretty good contingent here in CT. Woody and I used to bump into each other semi-frequently, but it's been a while since we've crossed paths. I think we have a few more GRMers in CT, dan0 comes to mind. And I think we have a few folks just over the line in the greater NYC area.

I'm going to start with the most positive (and cost-effective) update on the Saab this week, a non-cracked engine cover for $25:

Now that you've seen the glamor shoot (ruined by my shadow, of course), I'll promptly take it off to continue working on the car.

2nd thing I was looking into was the key situation.  Saabs are a pain in the butt when it comes to keys, so one of the reasons I bought the car was that it came with two key fobs.  If both fobs stop working, it's serious money to get everything working again.  So, I did a check on the SID (basically the info display for the car), and it said that only one key was programmed to the CIM, and it was the one I was using.  I tried the second key, and got the dreaded "key not accepted" error that instructs you to see the Saab dealer.   One of the challenges with Saab keys is that they can only be programmed once, it's likely the 2nd key the seller gave me was the original key.  At some point they likely had the CIM replaced, and only had one key programmed (the one that currently works).  The cut key in the (original) fob still works to open the door, so I could re-use that piece.

So today I made an appointment to go to Autotech in Danbury, CT, which sold me a new key and programmed it, so now I have two working keys.  The total was $241, which is not cheap, but it's much cheaper than the alternative of having to send out the CIM to have things replaced again.

When I bought the car, one of the issues the seller said was that the "radio doesn't work."  It's actually a little more complicated than that, so I've found.  Saab, in their infinite wisdom, used a fiber optic network for the stereo system.  In my car there's a faceplate (the part you see with the controls on it), the actual radio (buried in the dash), and an amplifier (AMP1) located on the floor under the driver's seat.  The audio system is complex (it's used to provide the sound for the turn signals, for example).  When I put in the 20A fuse after I bought the car, I got a whole bunch of static and loud pops, but no audio.  After doing some research online, I decided to replace the AMP1 (the one under the driver's seat) with a known-good version.  I did that, and I can get audio, but still get all of the static and pops as soon as I enter the car.  So I pulled the fuse and left it.  This week, I saw an '04 Linear being parted out 40 minutes away from me, so I grabbed another AMP1 and ICM1 (it's just the base model radio faceplate) to try to do some troubleshooting.  I swapped the AMP1 out for the (new) used one, and had the same results as the prior amp - audio worked, but there was still a bunch of static and pops.  Then I swapped the ICM1 (faceplate), and I couldn't get audio, but I still got all of the associated static and pops.

When I went to Autotech, George (the owner) mentioned that the static and pops are typically caused by a bad ground.  So that's another thing I'll be chasing after at some point!

So the tally is:

- Engine cover - fixed

- Single key - fixed

- Audio issues - not fixed, but I have some troubleshooting direction

So I've been chasing the G14 ground, which according to the diagrams is under the driver's seat.  I was hoping this would be the faulty ground, as it's associated with the front and rear amplifiers.  According to the Saab manual, it's near the front crossmember, which ultimately it was.

Saab Manual:

Real life:

Despite my high hopes as this being the faulty ground, it was actually pristine.  Time to keep hunting, only about 20 more grounds to go.  Have I mentioned how much I hate electrical troubleshooting?  I think I'm going to start in the engine bay looking at the major grounds next, and then circle back to the interior.  As a bonus, I now know how to remove the front seats (it's actually not too bad of a job).

So the plug circled in the photo is just dangling in my engine bay...any idea what that is for and why I don't have a corresponding place to plug it in? 

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

If I'm remembering correctly my Saab had the same unused clip. 

Not sure what that connector is, but it's unused in mine, as well.

dj06482 (Forum Supporter) said:

Not sure what that connector is, but it's unused in mine, as well.

Thanks, I will sleep better now. Or maybe I will plug it into something and see what happens. :) 

So I received a "one year ago today" notification on some of the pictures on the Saab.  Unfortunately, I'm not as far along with it as I was hoping to be.  Scope has increased a few times (oil leaks, broken balance shaft tensioner arm, etc.), and I've had a bunch of other projects on my plate, as well. Hoping this is the year to make some significant progress, the next update should be the balance shaft tensioner arm replacement, and then I'll feel better about driving it.  It has had about 4 oil changes on only 80 miles of driving, though!

My goal is to get it to a running restoration point, where I can drive it regularly as I'm making updates.  After the balance shaft tensioner arm, the next few things will be new headlights (the reflectors degrade over time making the low beams unusable), and I want to check the headlight wiring harness.

I've been working on clearing my plate of oil changes and tire rotations on other cars so I can get moving on the Saab. This is more of an accountability post, so today I (finally) made progress on the Saab. In the spirit of 1/2 hour a day, I moved the Saab to the larger work bay, and got the front end up on jack stands. I disconnected the MAF sensor, removed the airbox, and pulled off the front passenger side tire. 
 

Next steps are pulling  the wheel liner (includes heating up the plastic nuts with a torch), supporting the motor, pulling the passenger side motor mount, and removing the serpentine belt tensioner. After that it's getting the engine to TDC, and then pulling off the crank pulley and timing cover. Then it's a matter of dealing with the balance shaft tensioner and tensioner arm, and putting everything back together.

Yesterday I was away most of the evening, so the only progress I made was to organize some of my Saab parts. I mean, who owns three AMP1s and still doesn't have a fully functioning radio? This guy!

Today was better. I removed the fender liner, passenger side motor mount, serpentine belt, and serpentine belt tensioner (that was more difficult than it should have been). Then I cranked the engine over to TDC to match the timing mark on the crank pulley with the one on the timing cover, and then removed the crank pulley bolt and crank pulley. At that point, I temporarily put the motor mount back on and called it a night.

A couple of notes:

- The serpentine belt tensioner and bolt were really tight to the wheel well, so I had to use a pry bar on the motor mount bracket to create enough wiggle room to remove it.

- The crank pulley bolt was on pretty well, but thankfully my Milwaukee 2767-20 came through again. It seemed to struggle more than on the infamous Honda crank bolts it's used to zipping off, but I use a high mass socket to get those off, so maybe that was the difference!

So the next steps are to pull motor mount and the timing cover, and then I can start with the actual work 

Made some good progress this weekend, she's all buttoned up (for now). I was able to change a balance shaft tensioner guide, the balance shaft tensioner, and the balance shaft tensioner arm.  In addition, a few other things were replaced - the crankshaft seal (that's in the timing cover - a 1 1/4" socket helped seat it perfectly), the water pump inspection seal, it got a new crank pulley bolt, and a new serpentine belt (although the old one looked fine).  I torqued the new crankshaft bolt to spec (74 lb-ft plus 75 degrees), which required the use of the tool I created in an earlier post, a 4' breaker bar, and two 13" extensions.  Thankfully, I had all these things from my work with several Honda J-Series timing belts.

As much fun as it was to pull the serpentine belt tensioner out, it was even worse putting it back.  As someone on here mentioned, the clearance between the serpentine belt tensioner and the firewall is basically non-existent.  Thankfully, I had purchased a Gearwrench Ratching Serptenine Belt tool kit, I wouldn't have gotten the old belt off without it!  What ended up working was having my son lightly pry against the motor mount bracket from the inner wheel well, and that created just enough space to move the tensioner into place (with the bolt inside of it). Of couse, when I started it up, I heard the serpentine belt tensioner making some noise, so a new one is ordered and I'll get to do it all over again.

As expected, there wasn't much left of the balance shaft tensioner arm, this is a very common failure point with these Ecotec 2.0L motors.  Between what I had fished out of the oil pan when I did the level sensor and what was left, I removed a complete tensioner arm.  The tensioner itself had some significant wear on it as well.  I may go in at some point and do the timing belt and water pump, and if I do, I'll replace the balance shaft chain and the one remaining tensioner I couldn't get to without removing the timing chain.  These were the two videos I referred to the most when doing the work: video 1 and video 2. 

Since I spent a good chunk of the weekend looking at the problematic plastic T coolant fitting, I ordered the new part from eSaabparts.com which includes the metal pipe and the two hoses (not the hose that is the output from the turbo). I'm planning to do an oil change after a few miles, and then I'll replace the coolant T, and the serpentine belt tensioner once those parts come in.  At that point I still have a bit of a punch list, but I think I will have dealt with most of the critical motor-related items and can do more of a rolling restoration.  It'll need new headlights (the reflective trim is gone on the low beams so they're literally useless), then new struts and springs (I have all of those parts already).  At that point, I want to change the intake gasket and PCV valve, add an ECU spacer to promote more airflow around it, and change the valve cover gasket.  And it'll need new tires before long, but I'm waiting until after I do the front struts and springs.  I also hear an occasional rattle from the driver's side rear when I go over bumps, so I want to check out the shock mounts (common wear item) and rear shocks at that time.  So still plenty to keep me busy, but the oil level sensor and this balance shaft tensioner and arm were stressing me, so I feel better now that they've been replaced.

After I warmed the car up to check for leaks, I took it for a short drive.   I like the car a lot, but I've only put about 80 miles on the car since I purchased it last August (including the 35 mile trip home when I purchased it).  So I'm hoping to change that once I complete the next round of work.

It's been a productive past month on the Saab, but it all really came together in the past week. I had some "while I'm in there" kick in based on wanting to replace that problematic plastic "T" in the coolant system.  My concern is that it's plastic, it frequently breaks, and when it does coolant dumps directly onto the ECU (brilliant design).  I figured while I was going to be draining the coolant, I should really replace the coolant reservoir (plastic, 19 years old, etc.) and the t-stat which is directly under it.  When I removed the undertray to get to the radiator petcock, I noticed some crustiness on the bottom of the radiator that pointed to a possible leak near the plastic end caps, so I picked up a new one at FCP Euro (thankfully they’re close and have a lifetime warranty on parts I buy there).

Also, in a moment of personal brilliance, I decided it would be a good idea to replace the serpentine belt tensioner after I had removed/re-installed the old one the week prior.  So that was the first order of business, and went pretty well, although access between the wheel well and the tensioner is non-existent.

I drained the coolant out, and then I replaced the expansion tank and the t-stat directly below it.  The t-stat cover is very complicated, with a few outputs, and some 10mm bolts that are very hard to reach if you’re not draining/taking off the coolant overflow reservoir.  That went pretty well, and I got it buttoned back up.

Next was the radiator, which required some disassembly, including the upper radiator support and the front bumper.  I had been planning to replace the headlights because the reflectors on the low beams were shot (literally no output at night), so I picked up a set of DEPOs from Rock Auto and added some extra clear silicone sealant at the joints to (hopefully) prevent water intrusion.  This was a tip I saw from a Saab FB group. Most importantly, the low beams are effective at night, which is a big plus this time of year!

The radiator comes out the bottom, and you need to strap the a/c condenser and the intercooler so they don’t fall out when you remove the radiator supports. 

I did run into a problem with my cooling fan electrical connector – Saab likes to use electrical connectors that slide out to disconnect, and slide in to positively connect everything.  They work great, except when they’re broken, like mine   For future reference, a long, flat-head screwdriver works great if you use it to push the connector out from behind.

I was able to get the cooling system back together, filled, and burped pretty easily.  Notice the plastic T on the left hand side of the upper radiator hose has been replaced with the eSaabpart upper radiator hose with the metal T.

Two other “while I’m in there” projects were replacing the oil pressure sensor (it was leaking), and fixing some of the undertray/wheel well liner issues with zip ties.

After 2 years of searching, I picked up a Branick 7600 off of FB Marketplace for a song last winter.  All of our vehicles need new front struts, so I figured it was a worthwhile investment. It came with a 6’ metal stand they had made for it, and it mounts/unmounts with 2 bolts.  This was the first time I was thankful for the post in the middle of the garage, I strapped it to the post and had a portable strut/spring compressor.

The springs like to rust and break, this was the state of my driver's side strut:

So, after a bit of work, I now have all new struts, springs, strut bearings, and end links. As a bonus, I can now drive the car up on ramps for oil changes!

To celebrate, I did an oil change and drove the car about 150 miles over the past two days, which is more than the distance it's traveled over the prior 14 months since I purchased it. A few things have come up in the shakedown driving that I'll need to address at some point.

1. The blower motor makes some noise.  There's a documented DIY for spraying in some grease to quiet it down.

2. There's a vibration over 75 MPH on the highway I'll need to track down.

2. The fuel gauge sender is wonky at times.  I filled the tank, and 5 min later it was showing empty.  I did visit another gas station to quickly confirm the tank was still full.  It's a known issue, and requires dropping the tank and removing the fuel pump.

I was just mentioning to my wife that the work over the past month has depleted my parts stash for the car significantly.  More to come on the parts stash front...

Those connectors SAAB uses are by far my favorite, but you are right if they are broken it can be a pain. 

When they're complete, the connectors work well.  I'm just glad I found the openings on the other side where I could use the screwdriver to push out the plastic tabs so I could unhook the connector. I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to unclip it. On another note, who uses T25 screws to attach the fan shroud to the radiator?  One of mine was stripped from the get go, I had to use a well-worn cutoff wheel on my Milwaukee M12 dremel tool so I could cut a straight slot in it.  There was some pucker factor, as the A/C lines were very close to where I was working, and that was after I unclipped them and moved them as much out of the way as possible!

Hazel has been garaged her entire life so far.  One known issue is water intrusion into the interior through the cabin air filter housing.  There are multiple factors that contribute to this, including:

- Foam seals breaking down

- Lack of a cover on the '03 and '04 models

- Water pooling on the top of the cabin air filter housing

The symptoms are a wet carpet on the passenger side, as well as a squeaky blower motor.  My passenger side carpet has never been wet, but the blower motor makes more noise than it should, so I figured I'd proactively take care of this potential issue.

I followed Cyclone Cyd’s videos for the work that I did:

Cabin Air Filter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4jXc5k0El0

Water Intrusion Fix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcennoeNCQk

My cabin filter desperately needed replacing!

This is what it looked like with the housing removed (pre-vacuuming):

I ran the new foam gasket around, and used clear exterior silicone to seal between the housing and the gasket (not shown in pic):

Here's the housing reinstalled:

There's a part that's available for the '05 and up that's a shield over the cabin air filter, so I retrofitted that to my car:

While I was in there, I took advantage to drop some light gun oil onto the blower motor shaft in the hopes of quieting things down a bit.  Spoiler alert - it didn't improve anything, so I'll have to look into that at another time. 

And what's the fun of owning a Saab without adding a non-running (blown engine) parts car to the mix?  This week I'm doing some long-neglected projects for my wife so I can stay married , but I'll provide some updates on the parts car soon.

They do tend to multiply.

So I had been driving Hazel a bunch (put over 300 miles on her).  Even though the majority of the oil leaks seemed to be fixed, I noticed she was still marking her spot.  I checked, and it was coolant.  Of course, it looks like it's coming from the water pump, which is a pain in the butt to replace on these. I ordered a bunch of parts for the water pump replacement, and have been planning to kick off that work over the Christmas break.  

I drove the car over to a friend's house on the 23rd.  When I returned to start the car (about 20 min later), it cranked and cranked, but didn't start. Finally, after a few attempts, I was able to start the car but it was in limp home mode (starts in 2nd gear, etc.).  I made it home without issue and plugged in the scanner, the code was for the crank position sensor. I looked up the replacement part on Rock Auto and FCP Euro, and FCP Euro was $2 more, so I placed my order and selected local pickup (I'm a little over a 1/2 hour away).  Picked up the Bosch part on the 26th for the princely sum of $20, and replaced it today. I was able to contort my left arm around the mess on the left so I could use both hands to replace the sensor. They like to lose the o-ring in the engine block, but mine was still on the sensor when it came out. I used the 90 degree screwdriver to help pry the sensor out a bit. All in all, it took me about 20 min, and I'm the slowest mechanic I know. (Multiply book time by 5 and that's my timeline!) Oh, and disconnect the battery before you start working on it, I saw some sparks when my mirror slipped near the starter. 

After that, I put the car up on cribs to drain the coolant and start with the water pump.  More to come.

I noticed after all the cooling system work that Hazel was intermittently leaking coolant.  I'd replaced a good chunck of the cooling system (radiator, expansion tank, some radiator hoses, etc.), so the advice on the forums led me to think it was either the water pump or the seals on the coolant crossover pipe that runs from the water pump to the t-stat housing on the driver's side of the car.  The Ecotec motors in these Saabs are notorious for having an involved water pump replacement, and it lived up to its reputation!  There are two options - 1) go in through an access hole in the timing cover or 2) remove the timing cover entirely.  The criticism of option #1 on the Saab forums is that the balance shaft tensioner (the water pump is spun by the balance shaft chain) can ratchet tighter when you go in through the access hole.  So not wanting that, I did the full job, which involves removing some extra stuff (serpentine belt, belt tensioner, crankshaft pulley, timing cover, balance shaft guides and tensioner).  As it is, I removed a ton of stuff to get access to the water pump and t-stat housing.  There's a pipe that runs across the back of the engine bay, between the water pump on the passenger side to the t-stat housing, which is on the driver's side of the engine.

I removed the catalytic converter, full exhaust, heat shield, coolant expansion tank, heater hoses, undertray, wheel liner, coolant crossover pipe, t-stat housing, coolant line from turbo to t-stat housing, turbo oil feed line - basically you name it, I took it off. I planned ahead and sprayed the key bolts with SeaFoam's Deep Creep, which seemed to help me get off the rusty nuts without any issue.

The t-stat housing was attached to the engine block on the driver's side, but several of the bolts weren't even finger tight!  There was quite a mess all over the back of the engine, as the water pump had been leaking, as well. So I probably spent hours cleaning stuff along the way.

So now she's buttoned back up, and I took her through emissions today (she passed with flying colors!).  So now (hopefully) we're back to our regularly scheduled driving.  The goal is to get a ton of miles on her and sort out any other issues that may crop up.  I still have some parts for future jobs (valve cover gasket, intake manifold gasket and PCV), and I have a whole parts car taking up the other garage bay, so I'll be working on her, but hopefully we're through the big jobs for now!