Project ChatsHarris's Saab 900 (Moleman) Good Moleman to you.

[chatsharris]

So the missus has gone for a week, so I'm tinkering LIVE.

 

So far I know it starts, runs and drives. That's always a positive start.

 

I'm not sure where to start with the Saab at the moment, until I can really get amongst the welding it's going to be looking at cheap fixes for now.

 

For example, one of the doors wouldn't unlock, which obviously meant it wouldn't open. However:

A sharp smack on the door card allows you to lift the snib and the door opens. It'll work fine until you lock the door and you have to hit the door card again.

 

It's progress. It's slow but it's there. Another point of consideration is the cracked exhaust manifold. It's definitely a bit cracked, and obviously in an awkward place. I was informed you can't remove it without dropping the engine however it looks like you can, but it's a ballache.

 

I've bought firegum instead. God help us all.

[chatsharris]

So I was feeling good, cracking on in my usual style of doing jobs I thought I could just get sorted.

 

However, this one is proving to be a bastard.

 

 

It opens fine from the outside, however the internal one just won't budge. It seems pretty seized but it's hard to tell. Anyone have any ideas? It allows for a couple of mm travel, but that's it.

[chatsharris]

Biggest dickhead of the day goes to me for not checking that the child lock was on!

[omegod]

Brilliant  

[Skizzer]

Biggest dickhead of the day goes to me for not checking that the child lock was on!

Sounds like the sort of thing I’d do, taking a week off work to fix a car and spending all of day 1 barking up an entirely spurious tree.

 

Still counts as progress though, I’d say.

[chatsharris]

On the plus side, the doors almost work perfectly now. And the central locking now works on all the doors.

 

The headlights still need looking at, and the reverse switch needs looking at, the bulbs are fine so this will need more investigation. I also warmed it through to see if the hot start issue was still there, and it isn't how ever the temperature seemed to go over half.

[Jim Bell]

679 thumbers up

[clayts450]

I can trump you for child lock stupidity.

 

The 45's nearside rear door's handle had come off (TADTS) and PO glued the handle back in, so chocolate teapot.

 

I was pleased to find out I could still open the door from the inside though. Then I found the offside rear door wouldn't open from the inside - aha, child lock. Flicked it to off, winnah.

 

Wondered whether the child lock was on on the other side - despite already establishing it wasn't else I wouldn't have been able to open it from the inside. Naturally, as I was in the rhythm of changing child lock settings, I flicked the child lock on that door too. From off to on.

 

Now I cannot open the nearside rear door at all.

 

Twat.

[2MB]

If it’s any consolation, I did exactly the same on the back door of my 190D. Luckily the door card can be just about removed with the door closed, once you take most of the interior out

[worldofceri]

The turbo pipe that was loose? Do you mean the main one that has 'turbo intercooler' cast into it? FFS. I must have had it off for some reason and forgotten to do it up properly. I've definitely had it off at least once because you have to remove all that gubbins to replace the air filter. What a wally.

[Zelandeth]

Temperature: all three C900s I've had were set up such that the fan cut in at around 2/3 on the gauge. Warmer than I liked, so I always wired up a manual override to allow me to veto the sensor.

 

Headlights: the double relay may well be to blame. The braided contact comes adrift inside. Repairable if you know one end of a soldering iron from the other. If tapping it has any effect that's likely your problem.

 

It's a fault which can leave you with no headlights with no warning, so I always made a point of keeping a spare in the car at all times.

 

Hot starting issues: had this with my first C900. I fully serviced the ignition system and the problem immediately disappeared never to be seen again...worth doing on any new to you car anyway.

[chatsharris]

Thank you for the advice. Luckily there doesn't appear to be a hot starting issue at the moment, so I'll put any worries of that on the back burner. The fan thing is surprisingly reassuring as I was concerned it was just knackered in general! The headlight is a great piece of advice and one that is greatly appreciated.

[DeeJay]

Biggest dickhead of the day goes to me for not checking that the child lock was on!

 

You said you wanted cheap fixes and they don't come much cheaper.

[jonathan_dyane]

My old car! It was a lovely old thing, I'm sure you'll get it sorted in no time. Although the back end was rusty it was (and hopefully still is) remarkably sound around the awkward to fix front chassis legs/driveshaft tunnels.

 

The exhaust manifold will come off without moving the engine (I know because I removed it in-situ when I did the headgasket) unfortunately I'm not sure there is such a thing as an uncracked 8 valve turbo exhaust manifold. Gun gum or epoxy will bung it up for a bit but I found it would burn off well under 1000 miles.

 

The temperature gauge IIRC used to under-read so be careful with that. 

[chatsharris]

My old car! It was a lovely old thing, I'm sure you'll get it sorted in no time. Although the back end was rusty it was (and hopefully still is) remarkably sound around the awkward to fix front chassis legs/driveshaft tunnels.

 

The exhaust manifold will come off without moving the engine (I know because I removed it in-situ when I did the headgasket) unfortunately I'm not sure there is such a thing as an uncracked 8 valve turbo exhaust manifold. Gun gum or epoxy will bung it up for a bit but I found it would burn off well under 1000 miles.

 

The temperature gauge IIRC used to under-read so be careful with that. 

 

I will hopefully get it sorted, however I am missing skill in abundance!  I will give it a good go though, and then if I get it back on the road, happy days.  If not, I'll have definitely learned a lot from the experience!

 

All the manifolds are either unobtanium prices, or they're cracked to buggery. If I can bodge it through the MOT that'll do nicely.

 

The coolant tank was empty so I filled it before I ran it up, could there be a chance of an airlock causing the high temperature?  It took a while to get to temperature.  I'll run it through again and see if the fan kicks in too.

 

Thanks for the heads up, hopefully it'll all go to plan and I can pootle about in it for a bit! 

[worldofceri]

It's passed an mot in my ownership with the manifold like that so I wouldn't worry too much. Testers opinions vary I suppose but a smear of Gun Gum to keep the worst of the escaping gases at bay temporarily and it should be fine.

[worldofceri]

Ref the cooling system, I flushed it through at one point so it shouldn't be too bad; I don't recall it being hard to bleed. At least one of the small hoses is well past it's best and it could do with a new expansion tank.

[chatsharris]

I'm going to get a few lengths of different diameter rubber hose and start replacing the knackered bits, hopefully that'll help matters too!

[chatsharris]

Well, it's been a couple of months since the last update, and while life has been getting in the way of making huge progress I am still making some sort of headway with it.

 

I thought I'd move my attention to a few of the jobs that I felt a bit more confident in tackling - mainly the lighting system being a bit of a bag of nails.

 

I thought I'd start from the front and work my way back.  The headlights:

 

 

They weren't working. Although if I recall correctly, they worked on high beam.

 

 

Step forward the culprit, as someone said the relay was the first port of call.  However, it doesn't actually seem knackered.  If it's pushed all the way in, you get nothing. However, if you move it a fraction of a millimeter out...

 

 

Let there be light. I may line the bottom of the relay with a gasket to ensure it stays put in the preferred position.

 

Then the fun of the back lights loomed on me. 

 

They didn't

 

 

know what

 

 

to do.

 

 

So the fun begins, and I actually really like the simplicity of the rear lights.  Just unscrew the covers and the bulbs are all there.  No fiddling around in the boot or pulling stuff off you know will never fit back in place correctly. 

 

 

A few of the bulbs were out, luckily Halfords had a sale on lightbulbs so I had already stocked up on every single type of bulb it could need.  I forgot the after picture but all of the lights were working, with the exception of the reverse lights.  The bulbs looked fine which led me to believe it was related to the reverse switch.  This involved taking the centre console out, a job that was surprisingly simple.

 

 

The reverse switch is screwed into the side of the gearstick housing, and usually has a couple of washers between the housing and the switch. Favouring the idea of the free fix, I took out a washer, screwed it back in and

 

 

Bums. Two secs.

 

 

Much better.  The cat enjoys being in the car when I'm tinkering, so here's a photo of her with the spoils.

 

 

At this point a couple of the lights in the rear were being intermittent again, so I reopened the lot and cleaned the bulb contacts with electrical contact cleaner. All now working as expected!

[Saabnut]

Don't forget I have literally shed loads of c900 parts if you need, though mostly 16v stuff

[chatsharris]

Don't forget I have literally shed loads of c900 parts if you need, though mostly 16v stuff

 

I definitely have you in mind for a couple of bits, I've got another update on this to post to bring everything up to date, and when I'm back home this evening I'll have a look at my list of jobs/bits required and touch base with you!

 

I saw JoeySpud sold his 900 recently, shame really.  Looked lovely, he did some great work on it.

[Joey spud]

It's sold pending collection.

The guy is starting to mess me around a little now.

 

Only made £535 was hoping for at least £700 esp after having 88 watchers and countless daft questions but it wasn't to be.

The non turbo 900's are still cheap as chips.

 

A few enquiries just wanted to know the condition of the wings and bonnet with a view of breaking it up for their own cars.

 

It's replacement is the total opposite and needs picking up from Okehampton next week.

[chatsharris]

Another update then, which should bring it up to speed.

 

Firstly, the car has been named - I've called it Moleman, after the lovable geriatric in the Simpsons.

 

 

They're both old, leaky, and crusty but ultimately beloved.  A perfect fit.

 

I spent a nice afternoon washing the other two cars, so it was only fair that Moleman got a sponge bath too.

 

 

It's now gone from dusty, rusty shite to just plain old rusty shite.

 

I also had a look at the speedo lights, as it wasn't lighting up.  I was able to get to the back of the cluster via the speaker grille on the top of the dashboard, thanks in no part to my tiny girlish hands!  A bulb was pulled out and replaced, and it now lights.  There is another bulb I may try to attempt later on, however it's low on the list now.  This is because no cluster lighting is a major defect, partial lighting is only a minor.  I don't need the rev counter anyway.

 

Now that was taken care of, attention could move onto the cooling system.  It was overheating, the fan wasn't kicking in and I was concerned that it would lead to OMGHGF.  It didn't seem to be flowing around either. 

 

 

And so to work.  The first two things I wanted to check were that the thermostat was operating correctly, allowing the flow of coolant to work its way around and that the fan worked.

 

 

Two bolts take off the thermostat housing.

 

 

(Unfortunately I bounced between my phone and a courtesy phone so pictures will start to look a bit cack) The thermostat was revealed, however it would not budge at all.  Careful screwdrivering didn't help, I wasn't sure what I'd do.  Then I had an idea...

 

 

I had a little strip of elastic just lying around in one of the cars, no idea why I didn't just throw it out, but I looped it around the top loop, and increased the tension and out it popped.  It was a bit of a bodge, but my thinking was the elastic had a bit of give to avoid damaging anything, but would still have the pull.  I've kept it in the glovebox for another time!

 

Now the stat was out, it was time to test it.  The missus would never let me throw it in a pan and boil it, so I had to improvise with a jam jar filled with boiling water.

 

 

It opens, it's all good. (Is the bit missing from the seal a concern though?)

 

However, there was another concern - the gasket on the housing was in a complete state.

 

 

Time to get online and have a look.  In the meantime:

 

 

£4 on ebay later and I had an assortment of gasket sheets in differing thicknesses to go through.

 

 

I went for the 1mm, new gasket cut out and fitted onto the housing.  Happy days!

 

I was happy with the state of the thermostat, so the next thing to focus on was the fan.  The first step was to look at the wiring, as they commonly go bad as it runs along the front.  Doesn't help when you find stray wires rattling around in the engine bay.  I rigged a multimeter onto the connectors to the fan cut in switch, and was getting little to no voltage, however, when I brushed this wire against a bit of metal I suddenly got a decent voltage!

 

 

I have a feeling that it has come away from this piece of electrical ingenuity* (Or it's how it should be, I am terrible with electrics however melted choc block is a bit of a worry.  It is near the manifold though)

 

 

I stripped some fresh wire, crimped on a doodad and attached it into the Electrical-Totem-Pole-of-Firey-Death.  A bit of faffng around later and bridging the fan switch connections made the fan whirr into life.  Great news!  With that in mind, the last thing to do was to reconnect the switch and run it up to temperature. At running temperature, the thermostat opened, the system was bled and I could feel like progress was made.

 

Fan switch didn't kick in though so I think that it's worth getting a new one. Alternatively I will go with the earlier suggestion of running a manual switch through.

 

 

[hairnet]

That's a cracker, i do like those big Sorrento's. peugeot post vans

[chatsharris]

Smol update on this - Not a lot happened due to working all sorts of shifts and a shite winter, it leaked a lot despite being taped and tarped up - a fair bit of mould which cleaned up easily. Battery died a death and with my domestic situation resulting in my moving out and the Prelude being my main focus at the moment, I decided that it was probably best to move it on.  Five cars on the driveway is a bit too much to deal with when it comes to swapping them around.  I stuck it on Faceache and got a lot of interest, quickly accepted a deposit last night from a young couple who are planning to restore it, they're picking it up either this weekend or next.  Definite future shiters.

 

I knew it would have been a long shot to get this back on the road myself due to an innate lack of skill, however I learned a shedload from it which I've been using towards the other cars.  I think I even turned a small profit after it all too!

 

Thanks to everyone for the advice given during Moleman's tenure.

 

11/10 WUD SHITE AGAIN