Stanky's Car Fixing Thread - New Battery Day 25/10

[SiC]

You'll probably find this useful: http://www.saabcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=612946

 

WIS is the most of interest - Workshop Information System aka workshop manuals.

[Stanky]

So, I'm soon to get a set of 17" wheels courtesy of Jerzy Woking, these have been partially stripped and will get given a seeing to with an abrasive flap wheel when they arrive with me.

 

So, they need to be re-painted, should I:

 

1. Prime, paint and lacquer them myself with rattle cans

2. Prime, paint and lacquer them with the aid of my Uncle-in-law who is a skilled painter and has proper compressed-air spraying kit

3. Send them off to be done professionally

 

I guess that they are in cost order with 1 being cheapest and 3 being most expensive

[Bren]

Get them done professionally - otherwise it is days of your life you will never get back.

[Jerzy Woking]

You could leave them as they are for Ratlukyo 

[Stanky]

Following the kind shitely-ing of the wheels from chez Jerzy to chez Castro, I am now in possession of 4 new rimz for my Saab. These are sans tyres currently at at some point in the past have been semi-stripped/sanded down, tonight - following a call to my uncle-in-law (of gearbox fixing fame) I decided to have a crack at sanding them right back ready for him to hi-cote primer them.

 

Tonight, I tackled 1 wheel. Now my fingers hurt. Here it was prior to commencement:

 

 

 

 

As you can see they are in generally good shape, but needed a good sand down to remove the remaining paint, primer and ally oxidisation marks.

 

Out came my drill-mounted abrasive flap thing, and some 120-grit sandpaper. I gave all the flat bits and the inside of the rims a good seeing too with the flap thing then broke out the 120-grit paper and set to the fiddly bits around the spokes. Then I sanded down the corrosion around the lip of the wheel to ensure it seals well when I eventually fit some tyres to it. An hour and a half later it looked like this:

 

 

 

 

 

My fingers are now broken and I've inhaled about a kilo of grey paint/primer/bauxite dust but I'm pretty pleased with the end result. Admittedly I'm only 25% of the way through but this wheel has cleaned up nicely and is now (I hope) ready for a coat or two of primer. I aim to take it round to UIL's place later this week for him to check my handwork and collect a mower and see what else needs doing. its not quite back to clean metal but he suggested that as long as it was nice and smooth generally and I used nothing coarser then 120-grit then it should be OK.

 

I'll report back in due course. For now I'm going to try and fix my crippled digits before round 2 (of 4)

[doobietoo]

Fuck you are a masochist, I did a set of 300c wheels like that for a B5 passat once, took me about 3 weeks and cost a small fortune, although the complete lack of fingerprints remains a plus point to this day. ... send them off to a powder coaters, it will be cheaper, easier and the paint will not chip the first time you take it for a drive...  

[Stanky]

What is the going rate for (presumably) shot-blasting and powder coating for a set of 4 wheels?

 

I really want a small blaster now...

[Jerzy Woking]

I paid £200 for a set of 5 Lexus LS430 wheels to be done. Dropped them off with tyres fitted, got them back and they'd been acid dipped, blasted, polished and finally powder coated. Still looked magnificent 6 months later.

 

After scuffing the very most outer part of the rims on THREE of the wheels on my Saab in ONE day**, they will be going to be repaired - should be easy for them to do as the rest of eachwheel is perfect, and won't need the tyres removed. 

 

Before abd after photos will follow

 

 

** never marked a single wheel in the 14 years of having decent alloys on a car before this dreadful day.

 

 

[doobietoo]

£40 to £50 a wheel seems to be the going rate. best to shop around and then hit the "we will better any quote " merchants last...

[Stanky]

I'll make some calls tomorrow I think - see what prices I can get. If I asked for a form to just shot-blast the remaining 3 what sort of price would I be looking at do people think?

[doobietoo]

might as well do all four about £20 - £25 per wheel...

[Stanky]

Right, I've had a go at 3 of these so far and its a horrible job! they need a load more work too so I think I'm going to concede defeat and send them off to a local firm to blast and then powder coat them. First quote was a slightly salty £395 + VAT - I appreciate that there is a far bit of work involved but I need £240 of tyres to go on these when they have been coated and thats getting awfully close to the cost of the ENTIRE CAR.

 

I got a recommendation from my uncle-in-law of another firm who have just quoted £48 a wheel inc VAT to blast and coat them which is a whole lot more palatable. They reckon a week to turn them around too which seems fair enough.

 

I'll see what domestic management says later on, would be nice to get them sorted and fitted before the winter.

[doobietoo]

sign ... you just wouldn't listen .....    

[Vantman]

I paid £200.00 inc. VAT to blast and refinish 4 wheels and it was a top job. Fairly local to me at Rye.

[Stanky]

Possibly SQA fodder but I thought I'd bulk up my fixerating thread with some engaging* content.

 

The Saab has just ticked over 142k, meaning its about due a fresh lot of ATF in the gearbox. I had noticed that the change can be a bit more jerky - particularly between 1st and 2nd - recently, not abrupt, but less smooth than it has been historically.

 

I have TEH FEAR of changing this myself as i'm bound to screw it up. Local place want £150 for either a full flush (I think they take a tap off the cooler line and let it run for a bit to suck all the old out and new in) or a 'triple' flush where they drain out 50% and replace with new, run for a bit then repeat two more times to get about 90% new ATF in there. This on its own is fine as I'm owed about £200 in expenses this month.

 

My question is, what are the consequences of not doing it? What I'm conscious of is that the Turbo is original, these reputedly fail at about the 100k mark and mine is now almost 50% over that. Then the front springs which are also a known weak point have done 80k (the originals failed at 65k) so might also want replacing within the year.

 

i have nothing against servicing and parts wearing out and being replaced, but the ATF and Springs would categorically be sent to the garage to do, if I screw up the ATF change  its curtains for the gearbox, and if I get the springs wrong in a compressor it'll literally take my head off and my corpse will be chewed on by local cats until my remains are eventually found by the RSPCA. So, do i get it done and hope I get a bit more life out of the springs, turbo and other bits that I don't know enough about to live in fear of, or just keep driving it?

 

I like the car a lot and its got 9 months of MOT left on it.

 

Opinions?

[SiC]

If the springs are ok, don't bother imo. The originals were made from crap material and they all broke. So much so, my parents (that I bought) had to wait a month at the time for Saab to get them in under warranty. Anyway the replacements lasted well over 100k before it got rear ended and written off.

[SiC]

I did ATF myself. Wasn't too bad. Is this got a 6spd or a 5spd auto?

[Stanky]

The springs are ok, I avoid speed bumps like the plague though. The top mount rubbers are iffy as they make a horrible sqeak noise if you go over a bump and both wheels rise at the same time (like going over a speed bump) - only one side and its fine. its another thing on the CBA to fix list. Its worse when its cold.

 

I believe the replacement springs were standard height but aftermarket - not GM replacements.

 

its a 5-spd auto, lovely gearbox in my limited experience and well matched to the torque of the engine. It would be a shame for it to go wrong due to my failure to follow simple instructions.

[SiC]

£150 isn't that bad a price. Just make sure 100% they're using the right fluid. Biggest thing would kill it.

[Stanky]

They are a Saab specialist indie outfit so I would hope they know what is the right stuff to put in. For reference, what should they be using so i can make sure prior to work commencing?

[SiC]

5spd I'd guess it's a AW55 box. If so JWS3309. NOT Dextron III.

[Stanky]

Yep AW55 box. I'll make sure they use JWS3309 in advance. Thanks Muchly

[SiC]

I managed the aw55 in the 9-5 that Hooli has by taking off the ATF hose to the cooler. Got the box flowing clear very quickly. Much quicker than suck and fill I did with the AW55 in the Laguna.

[Guest Hooli]

If you do it the cooler route it's probably worth getting new sealing washers for when you put the lines back on. Mine was leaking at both connections to the rad when I got it, not a lot but enough to make the level rather low in the box after a while.

 

The parts will be pennies, they are washers with a rubber inner section. So worth replacement to avoid any silly issues. I smeared them with sealant & put them back, but only because I needed it working & didn't have the bits to hand.

[Stanky]

An update regarding a non-interesting job on the Saab from today. Sponsored by Spinach.

 

I decided that since I'd not changed the spark plugs in the 42k I've had the car, and it wasn't clear when they'd last been changed that this job was probably due. The car revs cleanly, but seems to have a slightly lump idle which i think has gotten worse recently. Aided by a 37% (who decides this stuff?) discount at ECP this weekend I procured a set of plugs suitable for the engine.

 

There was a choice between fancy-pants £15-a-go ones, or the ones that were fitted to it previously which were £5 each, or £13.32 after discount for a set of 4. Guess which ones I went for?

 

So, bonnet open, I was presented with the usual view

 

 

I undid the 4x t30 torx screws that hold the ally plate covering the coil packs down.

 

 

They put up a bit of a struggle but let go eventually. To be greeted by this

 

 

 

There are 4 individual coil packs, co-branded Saab and Mitsubishi curiously. I removed the first one, released by a 10mm hex-head bolt through an eye on the top of the coil pack

 

 

The plugs live a LONG way down in the head. I'm used to accessing plugs fitted at a 45-degree angle through the side of the head so this was a novelty. My motorbike spark plug remover, purchased in error in about 2001 came in handy here.

 

 

And this is where the spinach came in handy. The old plugs had clearly been done up by Geoff Capes in partnership with bloody Loctite Superglue. All 4 put up a moster struggle, most notably 3rd from left which required a ring spanner to be applied to the plug spanner thing to get it to release its hold.

 

This is old vs new

 

 

The old ones were a nice russet brown colour which I understand indicates clean combustion, but the tip had eroded down considerably - meaning the spark had several more mm to jump between electrode and tip, doing it no favours I suspect. The threads were a bit manky so I gave each bore a quick squirt of carb cleaner before I fitted the new plugs. These went in a lot more smoothly than the old ones came out, and I tightened them finger-tight plus one third of a turn of the spark plug remover.

 

I made sure I had kept the coil packs vertical while i did this, I'm not sure if its the same as the earlier engine with the DI pack, where I understood the coils were oil-cooled or something and tipping it up disturbed the coolant, but didn't want to risk it so lifted them out, then wedged them upright in between the air box and the cylinder head.

 

Having done one at a time, and re-attached the funny clips that Saab seemed so keen on for ALL electrical fittings in the 9-3, I re-fitted the ally plate over the top of the coil packs, tightened the 4 torx bolts down to precisely hand-tight plus a bit, checked I'd not dropped or lost anything in the course of the afternoon's events and went inside for a bit to let the potential oil in the coil packs settle.

 

An hour later I came back out, wielding wood, a black cat, a rabbits foot, 4-left clover and prayer beads, stuck the key in the ignition, turned it and waited for it to all go wrong.

 

It fired up right away, and settled into a happy idle. Much less lumpy than before and no horrible noises. I let it idle for a couple of minutes, then gave it some tentative revs - it seemed happy enough so I shall declare it a job well done for now.

 

The old plugs are in the new plug boxes in the garage since I'm a womble and horde ALL THE THINGS just in case they are ever needed. I might get round to throwing them away in about 2035 once I've forgotten what they came off of, why I kept them and what function they performed.

 

Thanks for reading. If you have been affected by any of the issues in tonight's episode, please call 09096-GEOFF-CAPES for resources, help and guidance.

[The Moog]

Simple jobs like these can make all the difference.

[twosmoke300]

I'm convinced that worn out plugs with huge gaps like that are the main reasons coil packs fail . It must need much more spark voltage to jump the gap !

As moog says , simple jobs can be very satisfying

[Guest Hooli]

 

The old plugs are in the new plug boxes in the garage since I'm a womble and horde ALL THE THINGS just in case they are ever needed. I might get round to throwing them away in about 2035 once I've forgotten what they came off of, why I kept them and what function they performed.

 

I tend to throw all the old bits like that in the boot, just in case the new ones fail when out & about. Oddly enough I then end up replacing the old old parts with the new old parts at the next service & the old old parts go in the garage to be forgotten about...

[New POD]

Simple jobs like these can make all the difference.

 

And having the right gap will make the coil packs last forever.

[Guest Hooli]

Which reminds me, I've never looked at the plugs on my 9-5. I don't recall if SiC did either (I have a feeling he did but I'm not sure).