2001 Saab 9-3 Aero HOT 9/1 Sold!

[adam73bgt]

Well I had said to myself that I wasn't going to do a readers ride thread on this as its a bit new and I'm not planning to do much to it.. But since the design itself is fairly old now and there are a few jobs on the car I'd like to do, I thought I'd stick one up and see how we get on


So, why have I bought a Saab?

My daily since last June has been my XJ40 and while I love it, its not really an ideal car for me at the moment. It drinks a bit too much fuel for my liking and I missed being able to change my own gears

After looking at an Alfa GTV and trying to find a Honda Civic Aerodeck 1.8, this Saab popped up on ebay. The numberplate seemed familiar to me.. Oddly enough the same car had been for sale and was in my watch list just before I bought the Jag, I never went to look at the Saab cos I was set on the Jag in the end.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and I'm going to look at this Saab. Turns out the guy who bought it last June had to have a new engine fitted as the original succumbed to the oil sludge issues which can plague these B205 engined cars. The replacement engine was checked over and the sump cleaned out last August so I'm fairly happy I won't be getting sludge issues any time soon.

Enough words, some pics!











As mentioned above, its a B205 powered Aero HOT with about 205bhp and hilarious lumps of turbo lag and torque steer available Inside its as well equipped as the Jag, with CD changer, leather, cruise control, heated seats etc.

The car has done about 133k miles with about 90k on the engine but to be honest it doesn't feel that way. The first thing I got to doing on the car was giving it a quick clean as inside and outside it was in need of one.

After that my attention turned to ways that I could spruce up the car a bit on the inside. The ashtray in the rear was broken, the information display had a row of dead pixels, the carpet mats were a mix and match of halfords specials, an engine cover was missing and I managed to break the drivers seat adjustment panel within 5 mins of getting in the car..... (I also managed to break one of the rear speaker covers in the week...)



Handily enough, a scrapyard in Rugby had a couple of 9-3's in stock and one looked an ideal source of parts. The scrapyard itself is great, you pay £1.20 to get in and can just go around taking bits off cars yourself as you please plus the prices at the end are very reasonable

It didn't take me too long to liberate one speaker cover



An engine cover



An unused ashtray



And a full set of genuine Saab mats in decent nick (the drivers mat will clean up with a bit of effort I'm sure)



Certainly better than these Halfords jobs



But unfortunately I had to leave the Saab at home for the trip to the scrapyard as the car decided to dump a load of fuel the day before..

On friday morning, the Saab was very difficult to start, eventually I got it to run but immediately noticed a stream of liquid coming from the front of the car. I instantly shut it off and saw petrol over half the engine bay

This was the culprit



When the engine had been fitted last year, someone decided to cut off the end of the fuel hoses and use plastic tubing and cable ties (!) to sleeve the line.. Over time this has loosened somehow and was pumping neat fuel out while I was trying to start it, not great! but could have been worse if it had happened while the engine was hot which is a bit of a scary thought

From what I've read, they've likely done this because the Saab fuel lines use a 'quick release' barbed fitting which will break the barbs on the line if a special tool is not used. So rather than do it properly they've bodged it.. The car will be going into a garage this week to get it sorted properly with a new fuel line, I would do it myself but I need the car back quickly and I want to be sure that its done absolutely right



So there we are, its my new sensible daily Mods aren't really planned at the moment as I'm intending on spending more time and money on the MG but I will be aiming to get this looking as clean and tidy as possible so I may have a go at some 'detailing'

[adam73bgt]

So, the 'sensible' daily...

After the fuel hose issue got sorted, the garage noted that the cam chain was very noisy (something which I really should have picked up on when I bought it to be honest) Their advice was to sell the car as it was going to be a huge job...

Well a quick trip to West Midlands Saab Specialists got the main cam chain replaced for a very reasonable price and the engine is running much more smoothly

So after that I just got on with prep for doing an engine service as it was quickly becoming clear that it would be a prudent thing to do..


All of my service parts for the car had arrived in the week so I'd aimed to get cracking on doing the service today but things didn't exactly go as planned...

First off, one of the screws that holds down the air filter lid had a completely ruined head on it, so I had to take the whole housing out and resort to hacksawing the head off the screw, after doing that I found this issue...



I was pretty sure I'd ordered the right one but apparently not :x

After putting all that back, I thought I'd have a go at the spark plugs. Got the ignition module off only to find that my spark plug wrench didn't fit so that sparked (heh) a trip to Halfords to get a new wrench, after which it was a bit dark to do the plug swap

Annoyed by my lack of progress on the servicing front, with the help of a mate I decided to turn my attention to the aftermarket hands free kits fitted to the car. When I bought the car there were two fitted, neither of which I could get to work and in any case having the little controllers for the bluetooth sticking out of the dash was a bit messy so they had to go.



After pulling out the climate control panel, the glovebox and the side panel of the centre console we were able to get all the wires and other gubbins out, thankfully it looks as though it ultimately simply plugged into a standard oem Saab plug so there wasn't any botched standard wiring to fix, result!



Should get a decent weight saving from this little lot



While I had the climate control panel out, i've taken the opportunity to take out the cabin temp sensor to give it a bit of a clean out and a bit of oil as its been making a bit of noise



I've been running some engine flush in the engine today so hopefully I'll be able to crack on with some of the servicing tomorrow. I've got a fuel filter, cabin filter and spark plugs to change along with the air filter when I eventually get the correct one..

I'll be doing two oil changes as I'm not sure what oil the engine was last filled up with so I'd rather know its got good fully synthetic stuff along with flushing out any old curse word

[madwelshman]

Aero Hot, mmm, that's one rapid motor. Glad you're aware of the sludge issues with the B205, was gonna be my first advisory otherwise. It is advised though to drop the sump every oil change and check the strainer and for how big a job it is, it's worth it, just to save the engine, turbo etc.
It certainly looks a nice clean motor and with that number plate, I'd say was owned by an enthusiast at some point previously.
Enjoy ;-)

[adam73bgt]

Aye its certainly a lot quicker than its rather restrained exterior would have you believe! Since the sump was cleaned when the replacement engine was fitted last year I'm hoping there won't have been much, if any, sludge build up since

But I don't know what oil was used back then so that worries me a little.. I'll see what comes out after the first of the two oil changes and if it doesn't look good then I'll have a look at whipping the sump off

Aye it had quite a fair bit of main dealer Saab and Saab specialist history in the service book but that kind of tailed off which is why I think its ultimately ended up with a replacement engine! I'm hoping I can get it looking really smart again as its not far off, I do need to get the rust in the rear arches seen to though

[colintempest]

Saaaaaaaab. i love that word.

Lovely car, Aero's are cool!

Keep it alive!

[adam73bgt]

Feb 18, 2015 12:00:20 GMT colintempest said:

Saaaaaaaab. i love that word.

Lovely car, Aero's are cool!

Keep it alive!

Thanks! I'm doing my best to keep it happy, though I'm not sure how long I shall have it as I'm not bonding with it that much (though I suppose it is just meant to be a daily..


So recently the Saab's not inconsiderably sized boot has been slowly filling up with parts that need fitting! So I thought I'd try and rectify that, starting off with a simple job of changing the cabin filter. Armed with a Haynes manual I set about it, first job is to remove the wipers



And the plastic scuttle tray



(plus the second inner plastic scuttle tray...) With that off I could see the filter, The Haynes manual said the whole wiper motor and linkage system has to come off but I found this to be rubbish as the filter simply unclips and there is enough space beneath the wiper linkage to pull it out



Think it was definitely overdue a change!



Now that I could breathe a bit easier knowing that job was done, I thought I'd have a look at the brakes as brake parts are the worst offenders for taking up my boot space.

Started off with the drivers side front wheel, jacked it up, got the bolts out, and that was it. The wheel refused to budge. I tried several things, kicking it several times, using penerant spray, trying to hammer something in between the disc and wheel but all to no avail so I bravely gave up on that and tackled the rear wheel instead

Thankfully this came off with little effort and I was presented with brakes that weren't in terrible condition to be honest, but since I had brake squeal and I'd already bought the parts it was too late for going back

Unfortunately the weather was starting to turn and it had taken longer than expected to get to that point so I elected to abandon the pad and disc change for today and instead try out something else that I'd bought..

This began with a quick manual wire brush of the caliper



And then a quick lick of paint



They look a bit bright at first but I'm hoping the colour will mellow out a bit with time. I decided to go with blue because I think the whole car has a bit of a cold, Scandinavian feel, plus it goes some way to matching the blue of the Saab badges

Looks quite good with the wheel back on I think



While I was down there, I dug out a ton of dirt and mud from the rear arch lip which had built up. This had no doubt been the cause of the bubbly rear arches that the car currently suffers with, another job on the list..



Aside from doing that, I've been looking for jobs that I can do in the flat so I can keep out of the cold, one such job was to try and get the broken lines of pixels on the SID (Saab Information Display?) sorted. I'd actually bought a spare SID from a scrapyard 9-3 in the hope that it might have been fine but it had broken lines also but at least it meant I had one to practice on!

Getting the unit out is fairly simple, the radio slides out then its possible to push the SID out from behind



The first job is to remove the outer plastics, theres a panel on the underside that levers off, then its a case of two small screws which hold the back end of the unit on, then with that off, a further screw can be seen and removed to allow for the front of the SID to be taken off. Which leaves you with this



and this



Two more screws come out to split the circuit boards apart and reveal the ribbon cable which is the main crux of the issue



The problem seems to be that the ribbon lifts which causes poor contacts and thus you get broken lines on the display. The first fix I tried involved using a pen to push down each connection individually to help renew that contact. The second fix is to put a long piece of some sort of packing along the length of where the ribbon meets the board so that when the SID is put back together it compresses the ribbon down to complete the connection.

No pictures I'm afraid but I managed to effect a repair of sorts on each SID, in both cases one of the broken lines came back but on my original SID there is still 1 vertical and 1 horizontal line not working which is a bit frustrating! So back to the drawing board on that one



Not sure where I stand with this car, think I'll fit all the bits that I've bought so far and see how I feel. Its a very good car in many respects, but its just not the same as driving the MG or the Jag everyday. The ultimate test of this came when I caught a glimpse of myself in the car reflected in a shop window, just not as cool as the Jag.

[eternaloptimist]

You're giving it a new lease of life there. I think they make a great daily. If you don't bond with it, then whoever has it next will get the benefit of the love you're showing it.

The sludging was a problem even on cars maintained to the Saab schedule - the oil change intervals were too long.

[markgenesis]

Regarding the stuck front wheels, try laying on the ground and kicking the wheel from behind, or whack the tyre from behind with a sledge hammer.

Failing that drive the car up and down the street with the bolts loose, slamming the brakes on a few times, re fit the wheels with plenty of Copperslip grease.

[adam73bgt]

Mar 1, 2015 8:31:29 GMT eternaloptimist said:

You're giving it a new lease of life there. I think they make a great daily. If you don't bond with it, then whoever has it next will get the benefit of the love you're showing it.

The sludging was a problem even on cars maintained to the Saab schedule - the oil change intervals were too long.

Cheers In reality it is a fine daily driver, its relatively refined, comfortable, economical, fast etc. but its just lacking that extra little something for me. Maybe I'm expecting too much of it

In any case it shall get all the little bits and bobs fitted and then I'll see how I feel about it, it doesn't entirely help that my brother is now selling his early Mk3 Escort as that could be a cool little daily, but then it would miles away in the speed and refinement categories!

Mar 1, 2015 8:48:23 GMT markgenesis said:

Regarding the stuck front wheels, try laying on the ground and kicking the wheel from behind, or whack the tyre from behind with a sledge hammer.

Failing that drive the car up and down the street with the bolts loose, slamming the brakes on a few times, re fit the wheels with plenty of Copperslip grease.

I'll give that a shot, it sounds silly now but I was kicking it from the face of the wheel, trying to lever it off in a fashion... The loose bolts plan is also there as a back up, I've never tried it before though, how loose should the bolts be?

Copper grease will definitely be going on afterwards!

[markgenesis]

Mar 1, 2015 14:31:28 GMT adam73bgt said:

.. The loose bolts plan is also there as a back up, I've never tried it before though, how loose should the bolts be?

Copper grease will definitely be going on afterwards!

Not slackened right off just backed off the seats a turn or so, and obviously don't drive it for miles, i said up and down the street but really back and forth on the drive should be enough.

Had to use a sledge hammer before, last resort you can whack the wheel from behind (more adviseable to avoid the wheel and hit the tyre but the tyre absorbs the blow), if you hit the wheel get a mate to hold a block of wood against it to avoid damage.

Usually a good boot from behind does the trick though.

[adam73bgt]

Cheers! I'll give that a try next time I get a chance to look at the brakes, hopefully its just the one wheel thats decided to get a bit stuck...

[GoJo372]

Good buy that. Especially with the plate too. Looks clean

[adam73bgt]

Eugh. Living with this car is a rollercoaster ride, much more so than I was expecting when I bought it

So we start this update on a high, went for a longish drive in the week to pick up some MGB bits from GoJo372 (Thanks for the above comment about the Saab ) The twisty B roads showed that the 9-3 can be a bit of fun, if hampered by the rather rubbish steering feel (more on that later)

It also did 40mpg for a bit on the way back which is nice

I also ordered an air filter for it, when I initially ordered one with all the other service parts, I accidentally ordered one for an earlier 9-3 which doesn't fit... So took advantage of my mistake and decided to get a fancy Pipercross one this time round

OOOH MUCH POWER!



To be honest, I prefer these more for the lack of need to replace them rather than any pseudo performance gain, although a nice little bonus I had noticed was that you can just about hear a bit more turbo spool noise and a little hint of the recirc valve hissing

So that brings us up to today, I was aiming to get up early, head to the scrapyard to harvest some more bits off the 9-3 I've been slowly stripping, all going well until I get about half a Km from the scrappy.

Came off a roundabout in 2nd, straight road, clear.. be rude not to engine boosts up, then POP! and loss of power.

Coast up to the roundabout and the engine cuts out, engine warning light flashing, I'm thinking 'I wasn't planning to leave the 9-3 at the scrapyard' Try to start the engine, it starts and runs for a bit before cutting out, end up on a pretty busy roundabout...



Decide that its not worth getting run over trying to find the issue, so stand there like a plum waiting for the RAC. 60 minute wait is what I'm quoted, brilliant. Then a friendly local policeman turns up in an unmarked car, he calls for a couple of other officers and they push me over on to the grass (hitting the curb did make me cringe quite a bit..)

With the car off the road I could have a proper look, I'm a turbo novice but my first though was boost hoses, but all seemed well, until I took a look under the little engine cover.. The hose had popped off the throttle body!

I pushed it back on and tightened up the very loose jubilee clip holding it on and all seemed well, gave the side skirts a nice bash getting over the curb but I got into the scrapyard

Sorry for lack of pics but I was, by this point, on a bit of a mission I needed a couple of SID bulbs, a headlight switch and a headlight height adjustment switch. These were all harvested quickly (I only really wanted the switches for their bulbs..)

Then I turned to the other reason I had gone out, which was to get the rear anti roll bar in order to piggyback it with the one on my car at the moment. A nice, cheap alternative to buying a thicker arb I sheared a couple of bolts getting it off but that was fine and with some struggling it came away

While I was down there, I noticed that the back box looked different.. This car had twin pipes on its back box, I looked further and saw that the whole exhaust system looked pretty new and non-stock.. BINGO! I was having this

As the car was only on railway sleepers, I got the guy with the forklift to lift it up so I could have a proper look and sure enough it was a full catback system! Then I saw that the pipe had previously been cut in half by (I'm assuming) a different forklift when it was put in the yard.. GAH!

A bit dejected from losing that potential bargain, I headed home to continue my saga of trying to change the brakes on the Saab.. Decided to start on the rear side that I hadn't painted blue and the wheel was stuck on.. Tried the kicking method suggested above by markgenesis and eventually it came away so thanks for that tip!

A closer inspection of the caliper revealed that I would be needing new pins for the pads as they were quite corroded and surprise surprise I don't have any, curse word! so I did what I would usually do in that situation which was to wire brush and paint the caliper and then move on to the front passenger brake..

This was the one wheel I hadn't tried to remove so I was expecting a little bit of a fight but I got this.



OH FOR GODS SAKE (other deity's are available). Rather than risking damaging the locking wheel nut anymore, I elected to down tools for the day



Ooh other updates include, I've got a date for a remap to be done on the 9-3, so should have some more speed in April (If I still have the car by then..), I bought some breather hoses to replace ones that are split and I had a Saab specialist have a poke at the bulkhead to see if there was any cracking and sure enough theres a 2-3 inch crack :/ but its not an overly expensive fix so I'll get that booked in


So as I say, bit of a rollercoaster ride. Tomorrow may see me attempt to do the rear arb and the steering rack brace.. No doubt there will be some trials and tribulations along the way so tune in!

[markgenesis]

Must admit i'm not a huge fan of the car but i like the write up of the shenanigans with it so keep it up

[adam73bgt]

Mar 7, 2015 21:54:22 GMT markgenesis said:

Must admit i'm not a huge fan of the car

At the moment I'm not much of a fan of it either

[GoJo372]

Looked like a lot of car for the money when you came over though mate.
Get the annoying niggles sorted and til be a great all rounder daily

[adam73bgt]

Aye, I think performance and equipment wise it is a decent amount of car for the money. Perhaps I've just bought one with a few more niggles than most! The plan is to get the current list of things to do sorted and see how I feel

[adam73bgt]

After the frustrations of yesterday, I set about doing the anti roll bar mod today to cheer myself up. Though my spirits were boosted by having my mate come round with his Triumph GT6 (see my MGB thread) and selling a spare steering wheel from the Saab Though the weather was worse today so you can't have it all!

So a well documented way of improving the handling of these cars is to stiffen up the rear end. One can do this either by buying a thicker anti roll bar or by 'piggybacking' a second oem one on top of the existing arb. As this is not supposed to be my project car, I went for the cheaper option

So armed with my scrapyard scavenged arb, high tensile M8 bolts, some M8 nylocs and washers and some M10 nuts for spacing purposes, I set to work



Now its time for an apology, as yesterday's update was quite wordy I thought I'd take some more photos today but being under the car and with it being a dull day, the shots are a bit naff but you'll get the idea

So if you squint, you should be able to see the standard arb



It follows the contour of the rear beam and bolts to it. Now I'm not an expert by any means but an arb this thin being bolted straight to the beam didn't seem like it could actually have much of an effect but as I say, I'm not an expert...

The arb is held on with two bolts either side and 3 of them came out without an issue, 1 of them decided to shear the head off.. now this wasn't an issue in the scrapyard as it meant I got the arb off quicker. But on my car it meant that the remains of the bolt wouldn't come out as the bolt wants to hit the bottom of the spring pan...



So out with the trusty hacksaw and being very careful not to cut through one of the brake lines, I cut enough of the bolt off to be able to get the lot out ( I also managed to go through two hacksaw blades along the way...)

Pic of the offending article



So with the arb off the car I could see that the scrapyard one was actually in a much nicer condition.. but a quick session with the wire brush (manual, no fancy electrics in the carpark) got them looking a bit less flaky



Putting the two arbs together is pretty straightforward, if a bit fiddly as one bolt wants to fall out while you put another one in! the M10 nut acts as a spacer between the two bars and theres washers in there where applicable. I used nylocs at the top to hold them onto the beam rather than trusting the original fixing (one of which had half a bolt stuck in it anyway..





And in place on the car, I made sure to use some copper grease on threads to make it easier to remove in the future, not that I'm planning to!!



And that was that, all tightened up and done just in time to dodge the worst of the rain. Was a pretty straightforward job in the end so I'm happy with that, I haven't had a chance to try it out properly on the road yet as I've got a boot full of random stuff being thrown around as it is...



I was going to have a go at the steering rack clamp and brace afterwards but the rain put paid to that, I'll have access to a driveway this weekend so hope to chip away at these jobs a bit more. The sooner they're done the better!

[adam73bgt]

A little bit more work has happened on the Saab for those that are interested, but as always it seems to be a couple of steps forward with a couple steps back!

Flashback to this weekend just gone, I had a long weekend at home in Suffolk and the use of my parents driveway to work on the Saab. It's much nicer than working in the car park at my flat in Coventry so I hoped to make some good progress!

My previous attempts at sorting the rear brakes on the car had been thwarted partially by the fact that the pins and springs which hold the pads in looked as though they had been lifted from the Mary Rose...

This time however I was armed with all new parts and so decided to get cracking! Initially things were going fairly smoothly.. The caliper to knuckle bolts were pretty damn tight but using a mixture of body weight, physics and brute force I managed to get them undone

The caliper was persuaded off the disc using a medium sized persuasion tool (hammer), this tool was also required to remove the pads from the caliper as they were pretty intent on staying where they were.. But I did manage to get them out and cleaned up the interior of the caliper as best I could

I then turned my attention to the disc. Just get out a torx bit and undo the suspiciously new looking disc retention screw.. ah and its rounded straightaway, well of course that would happen.. Some choice words were aimed its way before I went and got the beefy Black and Decker corded drill and some suitable drill bits

Some loud drilling later and the screw made its way out (the remains of the screw unthreaded by hand..) and thankfully the disc made way The fitting of the new bits was amazingly straightforward once I realised which way up to put the anti noise spring on top of the pads. Plenty of copper grease was used where appropriate in order to make this job slightly easier for whichever unlucky soul has to do this job next (with any luck, not me!)



Nice and new!

I then gave the caliper a quick second coat of blue paint and popped the wheel back on. On refitting the wheel I used one of my new gen-u-wine Saab locking bolts as one of my current ones was already knackered as seen previously


One knackered locking wheel nut just isn't enough though is it?...


On going to remove the other rear wheel to do the brakes on the other side, a loud snap is heard as I try to undo the locking wheel bolt :@ That'll be the second buggered bolt then, a closer inspection also shows the locking wheel bolt key to be shagged as well. GRAND!

Cue many more choice words from me and giving up on that job for the day.


I did manage to get another job done though, changing one of the engine breather hoses which had split quite badly resulting in a slightly fume-y cabin..



And that was all I managed to get done, couldn't really be bothered for the rest of the weekend to be honest and decided to just enjoy the time at home instead

Since then, the car has just been into a Saab specialist today to have a small bulkhead crack welded up and a strengthening plate added so it won't be an issue in the future

This weekends job will be to try and remove the wheel bolts, or find somewhere that can. Then I can continue with the brake change, while there is also the matter of the steering rack clamp and brace to attend to


Though this weekend may also see me going to look at a potential new daily as I've rather lost most of my interest and mojo in the Saab now :/

Edit: Forgot to add that the airbag light which previously appeared then went away has reappeared!

[ChasR]

There are some cars out there which do seem to be problem cars, be it the owners or the garages that have worked on them. As you know I have owned some similar cars yet had a better experience with others!

What daily are you eyeing up do you think? It is shame you are gettng shot of the Saab but I can appreciate where you are coming from. Truth be told when bought my Clio I kept a very open mind on a modern to buy, but Jesus there were not half some shitters about for sale described as being minters!