cort1977

Saab back in service today after time off over the winter. Got down to Edinburgh no problem but a few issues appearing, oil leak now joined by power steering leak and a general baggy feel means a few new bushes are in its future. Still not bad for 220k and 32 years old though.

Saab back in service today after time off over the winter. Got down to Edinburgh no problem but a few issues appearing, oil leak now joined by power steering leak and a general baggy feel means a few new bushes are in its future. Still not bad for 220k and 32 years old though.

I thought it was cool until I met all you bastards.

I thought it was cool until I met all you bastards.

Yes, this is definitely the first place you’d come to when deciding what’s cool. 😄

Great progress with the bumpers but please get a better mask, paint fumes not good stuff to be breathing.

I left the paint to dry overnight and this morning.
I removed the masking tape and broadsheet to reveal sweet looking bumpers.


The front grille looks sweet too.
Next issue, sort out the sun burned bumper trims.

I have a plan and Amazon have delivered the solution but unfortunately I ran out of time this afternoon to make further progress.
Definitely more soon.
 
 
 

I you have one of these horrific,  retina destroying  style number plates on your vehicle you should lose your licence for a minimum of 27 years.

As an aside the BBC reports that "as District Judge Daniel Sternberg disqualified the Tory environmentalist from driving, he warned that drivers who speed "emit more harmful emissions" even in hybrid and electric cars."
Interesting legal point there - that the judge is taking in the whole scope of these limits in his consideration of the offence ie not just the danger aspect.
Of course the admonishment may have been directed with some irony at Zac Goldsmith as a prominent "environmentalist" driving an electric car.
But the jist of the judgment is that some limits are indeed there to protect the environment overall. 
Interesting point of law bought out there.

Saab back in service today after time off over the winter. Got down to Edinburgh no problem but a few issues appearing, oil leak now joined by power steering leak and a general baggy feel means a few new bushes are in its future. Still not bad for 220k and 32 years old though.

Saab back in service today after time off over the winter. Got down to Edinburgh no problem but a few issues appearing, oil leak now joined by power steering leak and a general baggy feel means a few new bushes are in its future. Still not bad for 220k and 32 years old though.

Saab back in service today after time off over the winter. Got down to Edinburgh no problem but a few issues appearing, oil leak now joined by power steering leak and a general baggy feel means a few new bushes are in its future. Still not bad for 220k and 32 years old though.

Saab back in service today after time off over the winter. Got down to Edinburgh no problem but a few issues appearing, oil leak now joined by power steering leak and a general baggy feel means a few new bushes are in its future. Still not bad for 220k and 32 years old though.

Saab back in service today after time off over the winter. Got down to Edinburgh no problem but a few issues appearing, oil leak now joined by power steering leak and a general baggy feel means a few new bushes are in its future. Still not bad for 220k and 32 years old though.

Saab back in service today after time off over the winter. Got down to Edinburgh no problem but a few issues appearing, oil leak now joined by power steering leak and a general baggy feel means a few new bushes are in its future. Still not bad for 220k and 32 years old though.

Some more stuff tackled. Trying to keep in my head all of the things I thought about fixing while on the Rustival trip. Writing notes? How quaint! Just stay awake at night trying to sift through jumbled thoughts until 3AM.
It would probably be good to sort out the broken headlights.  Brief recap. A few weeks ago I fitted a latching relay which allowed me to control the full beam entirely through the flasher stalk instead of the antiquated floor switch. This worked brilliantly until it didn't.  Turns out that £3 of Chinese "INDUSTRIAL CONTROL" electronics aren't suited for, you know,  anything.  So the PCB basically melted (it wasn't even carrying notable current).  Before the Rustival trip I simply reinstated the floor dip switch to get us on the road.
Turns out I wasn't wrong to try and get rid of the floor switch because as soon as it got dark, I went to switch between main and dip on a dual carriageway and lost all headlights. We pulled into a layby, consulted the wiring diagram, and crimped a couple of wires together so that we had headlights (but no mains).
Time to fix that permanently.  
The solution here is to use a 'proper' relay, in this case one designed for an old VW bus / beetle. The relay number is DNI 0127. There are also Meyle and Durite equivalents, so they are easily come by.
Step 1, remove floor switch and hurl it into the depths of the garden.
Step 2, crimp spades on the end of the wires to the floor switch.  Also tee-solder the smaller red wire into the bigger one, as that's more structurally sound than crimping two wires into one spade.

Step 3, RELAY

Here is the pinout.

And here is what that looks like in real life.

Step 4 : Replace the fuse you blew because you forgot to disconnect the battery, and touched the permanent +12V against the metal dash. Oh wait, there's no continental fuses left..  

So it turns out this lighting setup is even better than the one I set up previously with the INDUSTRIAL CONTROL relay.  
- When the dipped headlights are off, the flasher stalk operates as a main beam flasher.
- When the dipped headlights are on, the flasher stalk toggles the main beam on and off like a modern car.
- The relay also serves the purpose of being a relay for both the mains, flasher and dipped.  So it takes away the load from the light switch, provides full current to the headlights (brighter!)  plus it means I can remove the flasher relay and wiring in the engine bay as it is no longer required.
So far this seems a far more robust and efficient setup, time will tell.
Engine and gearbox mounts replaced.  The gearbox one was particularly hanging and the propshaft was bouncing off the bottom of the transmission tunnel.

A set of high performance air filters attached.  The purpose being twofold. The generic SU HS6 pancakes I had on would sometimes smack against the clutch master cylinder reservoir on hard cornering or acceleration.  I also felt they were strangling the engine as they were so thin and miserable looking.  These by comparison are offset specifically to fit the Amazon, and are significantly more chunky.

 
Y THO   |  Y THO

 
Test drove this and was quite impressed.  The wishbone poly bushes have sharpened up the steering a fair bit. The engine and gearbox mounts have changed the gearshifts significantly, and overdrive seems to snick on in a much more dignified fashion. 
A little bit of the induction roar from the pancakes has actually disappeared, but it still sounds great when opened up. I'll take it.
Next up, I'll be fitting the sports exhaust, more polybushes, and doing a number of electrical upgrades to make it more reliable.

Glorious warm spring day so where better to spend it than the local hospital oncology waiting room 😞

I did say one of the reasons.
The others mainly being greed and lol fuck you.🤣

Well, that's their story.

Are you supposed to declare stereos now?
Frankly, any of those things is not a mod I would bother declaring.  Plenty of people wouldn't even know they weren't standard.
On our shite cars, what are the insurance going to pay for the vehicle in the event of a claim anyway? The square root of fuck all.  What you're really paying for is liability coverage.  They can't weasel out of third party claims because of a non-standard air filter so why worry?  
By declaring it to be 'modified' you're putting yourself in a whole other category and paying the insurance grifters hundreds extra for no reason.

Couple of little jobs today in preparation for the MOT on Thursday.
One thing which I knew for certain needed sorting was the headlight aim.  I borrowed the Partner which I know the headlights are adjusted more or less correctly on and made a couple of reference marks on the garage door from a known distance.
Starting point basically had the headlights pointing at the ground about 6' in front of the car.

After a bit of tweaking things looked far more sensible.

There used to be a huge gap between the lenses and the surrounds, they look more sensible now.

Might need a bit of a tweak at the test, but all the adjusters are free now so that's only a couple of minutes work, and isn't the sort of thing my tester would mind happening while we're there if we need to.
As mentioned last time, I had to tweak the locking washer for the nut that holds the steering rack to the track rod bracket as I'd put it on backwards.  Just wanted to provide visible evidence (to myself as much as anything!) that I had gone back and fixed that.

The Easybleed as seems to be standard both leaked fluid everywhere and overfilled the brake fluid reservoir.  So I both drained off enough to bring the fluid down to the max mark and tried to clean up the general area so it didn't look like we had a huge fluid leak from the master cylinder.

I'd had a new air filter floating around pretty much since I got the car as the one on it was looking pretty manky.  If you wondered what filter these used, here's your answer.  Yes, that's also me lazily leaving breadcrumbs for myself when I forget.

Surprised to see this still being a current item from Mann given the *extensive* list of vehicles using it.

Has a late 2023 date code on though so looks to still be being made.  
Spotted one problem starting to develop in the form of one of the driver's door hinge pins attempting to make a bid for freedom.

Having grabbed a suitable drift this was hammered back into place properly.  Have to wonder how long that's taken to work itself that far out.  Noticeable that the door opens/closes more smoothly now.
Will try to find time between now and the test to give the car a general clean, and I'd really like to come up with a more substantial mounting solution for the front bumper as I can see it's sagging again.

Yup sure is had it out on a dry day last week as soon be roamers season again and this year be back of to mull a repeat of the very first run 7 years ago.   
 
Op I had 3 of those mk2 colts one a turbo  back in the day nice cars well bought.  

@Sh'Eds It may well be a form letter sent out based on a nosy neighbour complaint.  Hopefully responding promptly and politely telling them it's not used everyday but fully legal will see the end of the matter. Would still move it around a bit though just in case.

Saab back in service today after time off over the winter. Got down to Edinburgh no problem but a few issues appearing, oil leak now joined by power steering leak and a general baggy feel means a few new bushes are in its future. Still not bad for 220k and 32 years old though.

Existing in the land where sausage is square, hangover cures are bright orange and it mostly rains, exciting times come in many forms. 
I have signed up to my first navigation rally. 

What is that I hear you ask ... 
Well it is literally a rally (so driving cars, no placards here) where the focus is on the navigation (reading a map, like a paper TomTom.... You know like Waze.... No you can't ask siri) 
 

Open to all.