Since my last foray into European cars went so well... How about an old Saab?

24 hours later and no real progress.  I broke eastsideTim's bubble flaring tool trying to tighten it down on the line.  Instead of making a flare, it was just pushing the tube out, so I really cranked the wing nuts.  Apparently the pins they press in to hold the bolts in place aren't as strong as I expected.

This morning, I went over to FLAPS and got a length of line that is supposed to be bubble flares at each end.  I'm not sure I got the right thing so I need to look at that.

Still waiting on AutoZone's next day delivery to show up with the caliper and some DOT4....

Nothing is ever simple.

I was supposed to get a shipment of DOT4 and a right caliper this evening from AutoZone's "next day delivery" service.  Never showed.  The claim is that FedEx never showed for their second pickup of the day on Friday.  I figured that if I could at least get the car put back together with the bad caliper and rotor, I could drive it.  So back over to the shop.

Turns out that the line that I bought that was supposed to be bubble flared was not, in fact, bubble flared.  So I cut the flares off, re-flared everything, berkeleyed up the re-flaring and cut the ends off again and re-flared.  So now, it appears that the brake line is in place.  I won't really know until I put some pedal pressure into it if it's good good, but at least it isn't sitting there dripping at me.

Having made that progress, I decided to go ahead and put the left side back together and give it a quick bleed.  So I put my wrench on the bleeder screw and:

Now I have to decide if I want to drill that out or just replace the whole caliper.

In reply to wae :

It's always something.  😔 

This has been quite the entertaining thread to read through. Not in that certain events were but the fact that this car seems to be like a sweedish Herbie fighting you in some form or another along the way. Then the faults suddenly stopping just as random as they began (Ex: the low fluid light)

I refer to it as "Swedish Normal"!

For the brakes, I decided to go ahead and replace the other caliper.  I ordered one up from Rock Auto and and continuing to wait on FedEx to actually deliver it.  It got a nice tour of the city yesterday, and they claim it's back on the truck today:

While I was twiddling my thumbs all freaking day yesterday waiting on a FedEx driver who never showed, I went ahead and got the right side all hooked up and opened up the bleeder to let it start to gravity bleed.  Oh, and I topped off the reservoir with DOT4 as well.  Upside is that I'll get a great brake flush out of the deal!  So far, the new brake line doesn't appear to be leaking, but I won't really know until I can stomp on the brake pedal and build some serious pressure.

Looking around at the car while it was up there, I can see a couple places where the floor pan has started to rot away.  So far, it looks like it's in areas that wouldn't be too hard to take up the carpet, grind clean, and weld in some fresh metal.  I also can see that the power steering system is leaking...  freaking everywhere so I need to put it up on ramps at home so I can clean that up real well and try to see what parts are leaking.  Or maybe it would be faster to determine which parts aren't leaking!  I also think it might have a front main seal leak, because I think I'm seeing oil coming from behind the balancer.  But, then, it's flinging stuff everywhere, so who knows where it's really from.

The other problem is that while I'm at it...  The CV boots are torn on both sides and so should probably be replaced, and new shocks all around wouldn't be a bad idea as well as some fresh bushings.  So all told, I'd probably need to throw about $500-$700 at it to try to nice it up a little.  Perhaps that could be a fun summer project for the learning-to-drive daughters to help me with.

After having to yell at FedEx again to have them turn around and bring the package back, the left caliper arrived today.  It was a fairly easy process to get it installed and then bleed both sides, so that simple pad and rotor swap is finally finished.  Sort of.  I didn't get the left side parking brake adjustment quite right so I'm going to need to hit that again.  And the right side cable is all seized up and needs to be replaced. 

But other than that, the brakes are pretty much perfect.  It won't be too terribly long before I need to do the pads and rotors on the front and I think I'll just plan on getting new calipers for that and do it all at once.

And since that problem is fixed, now the stupid windshield wiper has come off again.  If I ever meet the moron that designed that....

Wipers have been returned to "Swedish Normal" function.

Interestingly, the last repair I made seems to have -- if you'll pardon the pun -- stuck!  I don't think I documented it properly, but the little cam has fallen off the spindle on the left side of the car three times, if memory serves.  The first time, I just slipped it back on.  The second time, I tried a little JB Weld in the splines.  The third time, I went Frank's Red Hot on it and just put that sh** on everything.  I expected that the cam had slipped off the back again, but in fact, it looks like the JB Weld fix is holding up nicely.

That was smeared on blind because I had never removed the linkage from the car before.  This time, I decided I was going to try to pull it out and I think that was the right answer.  There are only 4 10mm bolts that hold it in - two below the motor and one under each of the plugs in the cowl.  Once the arms have been removed and the 4 10mms have been set aside, you can disconnect the electrical connector and then proceed to curse the ancestors of those viking engineers that decided to put the front of the engine in the back of the car.  The good news for me is that my AC is all shot anyway.  The condenser was a victim of the guard rail impact and the evaporator box is a victim of entropy and is sort of just flaking apart.  All I had to do was take the belt off the AC compressor and then push some of the refrigerant lines around so I could drop the unit down a bit.  Using a long prybar, I coaxed the edge of the cowl up just a hair on each side to allow the wiper arm spindles to escape.  Just like that, I had the whole unit in my hands (giggity) and could see the malfunction.

That cable is held on with a little 8mm nut and that little nut is damned near impossible to reach when the assembly is bolted to the firewall.  I suspect that it just wasn't tight enough and it slipped loose.  Fortunately, the nut was still on the threads, so I wrapped it around and got it plenty tight.

After applying a little bit of grease to everything, I slipped it back in the way it came out and both sides are fully operational once again!  Oh, and I left the AC belt off.  It didn't seem to make sense to install it.