SiC's Silver Saab 9-5 2.3t Vector - Gone!

[SiC]

What's going on here?? Not another fix it session is it?!

 

The anemic fan has been seriously peeing me off and had to be fixed. Speaking to the previous owner today, he said that it's always been pretty weak compared to his other Saabs.

 

This reassured me that it must be possible to get it to do better. As the fan has been replaced, the only things left that could be causing issues is the earth, Climate Control unit or the Fan Controller. I first checked the earth. This is behind the CD player on the right hand side of a big tube that is part of the cars chassis. I undid the bolt and gave a good scrub with sandpaper. Made no difference.

 

I next consulted the workshop manual. The Climate Control screen puts out 0v to 5v signal depending on fan speed. Probing with a multimeter got exact that on the revelant pins when varying the fan speed.

 

This left the fan speed controller. This lives at the back of the passenger footwell once you unscrew the glovebox. Nice and easy to get to - compared to LHD cars where the steering gubbins is all in the way. Unfortunately to completely remove it, it requires disconnecting it from the fan. After removing and replacing the fan a good 4 times, I really cba to do that again - especially as it requires removing wipers and many bits of plastic shielding on the bulkhead. So I decided to dismantle the controller in-situ. If you do this, remember to either remove the fan fuse or unplug the connector at the top, as the cooling fins on it are +12v and shorting against the car body will create a short. They helpfully put a warning label on the back of the fan controller warning you of this!

 

Disassembling it (2x T10 torx bolts for cover, 1x T10 torx bolt for heatsink) presented me with this:

 

Going by the flux residue, it looks like someone has been in this before. I can't believe it would leave the factory looking like that. I reckon a remanufacturing company replaced the transistor at some point. I scraped away some of the flux (it can conduct electricity) and tried the fan again. Result! Got a proper blast of air out.

 

As the solder joints looked a bit shit (looks like lead-free assembly but not enough heat used when resoldering done), I decided to resolder it using leaded solder. Interesting side note, leaded solder is less harmful to the person soldering than lead-free solder. Lead solder puts out very little lead fumes - most of it is flux fumes. Lead-free flux is far more toxic as it needs to handle higher temps. As it was an enclosed area, due to not removing the controller from the car, it was better for my health to use leaded solder!

 

First attempt was with this gas soldering iron.

 

What a load of shit this was. Took a good few minutes to heat up the tip, and putting it against a solder joint made it loose all it's residue heat almost instantly. Enough to stop the solder melting.

 

So decided to crack out the proper hot stick

 

A decent soldering iron is one of those tools that is joyous thing to use. A decent one will heat up in less than 30 seconds, hold their heat and really capable of chucking in heat without temperature dropping. Once you've used a decent one, you'll never want to go back to shit ones. You suddenly turn from a crap solderer to a really good one, just by using a decent tool. Needless to say I managed to resolder + reflow all the main joints in less than 5 minutes with this.

 

I cleaned off the heatsink paste and replaced it with some fresh* stuff. Bolted it all back together and did another test.

 

It's now exactly how I expected a Saab interior fan to be. Hurricane force! Also very nice that it heats the cabin so much quicker now.

 

The other issue I am having is that I'm beginning to relike the damn thing!

Saabs really have a habit of doing this to you. Especially as you get more of it the fixed.

 

Oh and it repaid me for fixing it's blower by blowing the front right dipped headlight bulb on startup...

[SiC]

I've put in an extra 400 or so miles in this over the Christmas period and I have to say I'm quite pleased the roffle hasn't completed as I'm getting quite a bit of enjoyment driving this around. It's a bit like old square Volvos in that if you're bobbing along and come up to a single pass through road, you are more often than not let through. The first car that I've driven too that Range Rovers yield too!

[SiC]

Oh and I have also found the perfect method of making it wife friendly when it's banging into gear. Quite simple, when in full-auto you simply lift off when it's about to change gear or drive it in manual padle shift mode (yes it has padle shifters!), you lift off, push the shifter, wait for it to change and then carry on accelerating. Doing this I didn't even get a single tutt of disapproval from the other half.

 

Incidentally I see it as great way to practice for the eventual replacement of this (when I find one reasonably priced for sale), as this is the recommended way to change gear in a Smart Roadster.

 

Is this not just another excuse to not fix that sodding Gearbox properly?

 

Well maybe yes. I am though quite enjoying driving a car that requires a bit of thought and skill to drive smoothly and requires far more mechanical sympathy than my others. Also the weather is still far too shite to be spannering outside in.

[Sloth in a bowl]

Give me 2 randoms on the roffle please. Always wanted a big SAAB since my sister had an old 9000.

[Steve79]

Pm sent

[SiC]

Give me 2 randoms on the roffle please. Always wanted a big SAAB since my sister had an old 9000.

5squids each

 

1

2 Kiltox

3

4

5

6

7 loserone

8 barmatt

9

10

11

12

13

14 Sigmund Freud

15

16

17 The Moog

18

19 blakey79

20 Sigmund Freud

21

22

23 barmatt

24

25 primeradoner

26

27 stephen01

28 gadgetgricey

29 Kiltox

30

31 loserone

32

33 Sloth in a bowl

34

35 Sigmund Fraud

36

37

38

39 Sir Terence Wogan

40

41 Sir Terence Wogan

42

43 The Moog

44 gadgetgricey

45 primeradoner

46

47

48

49

50

51 Sloth in a bowl

52

53 Sigmund Freud

54 Supernaut

55

56 the judge

57

58

59

[SiC]

Out of interest, what sort of interest in this would there be if I dropped this to £3 a ticket or like £180?

 

I might* have found a car I want to buy, but I'm not allowed another car on the drive.

[Guest Hooli]

Remind me, it's got about 11 months MOT hasn't it?

[Kiltox]

Bargain at that imo.

[SiC]

A bit less than that now. It was done last in October. So 9/10 months or so left now - I've done about 500 miles extra since then. However as I've been using it daily this month now and my main goto car (the seats are fabulous), so it's going up a bit faster. Up as fast as a 12 mile round trip a day will make it go mind.

[SiC]

I might do something I hate doing and stick this up on ebay or gumtree...

[Lacquer Peel]

This should hopefully fix the ABS warnings that pop up when you go above ~65mph. Will require the hub nut to come off, so probably will get my local friendly garage to do it. Something that will be so much quicker and easier to do on a lift with air tools.

 

Late response, but wheel on the ground, hub/centre cap removed, big arse breaker bar = sorted.

[SiC]

Realistically this car has done what I've needed it to anyway to justify its purchase, as it's coming to February and the daylight in the evenings mean I can start cycling again. Which I need to, as I've gained 3kg (half a stone) since I stopped a few months ago...

[SiC]

Late response, but wheel on the ground, hub/centre cap removed, big arse breaker bar = sorted.

Or £30 cash to the local garage to sort.

 

Apparently it was very straightforward job for them to fix. Most of the work was apparently getting the CV joint surface super clean & rust free to get it to fit over properly.

[sporty-shite]

Out of interest, what sort of interest in this would there be if I dropped this to £3 a ticket or like £180?

 

I might* have found a car I want to buy, but I'm not allowed another car on the drive.

I'll have four randoms at three quid a pop.

 

KTHXBAI

[gadgetgricey]

Out of interest, what sort of interest in this would there be if I dropped this to £3 a ticket or like £180?

As previous post I'd also have 4 tickets for £12.

Already had two tickets for £10, so £1 each for the extra ones. (That's man maths at its best 😀)

[AMC Rebel]

Confused on pricing, but will take two randoms please (at or below £5 each).

[Jazoli]

I'd do 4 for £12,

 

9,10,11 and 12 please

[SiC]

Roffle on a pause as a buyer found!

[Jazoli]

Roffle on a pause as a buyer found!

 

Phew, I'd only just psyched myself up to join in on this one and buyers remorse had already set in.....

[Guest Hooli]

Phew, I'd only just psyched myself up to join in on this one and buyers remorse had already set in.....

 

I might raffle the goona soon, you can suffer remorse for that instead

[Jazoli]

I might raffle the goona soon, you can suffer remorse for that instead

 

Fuck that, even I'm not that brave.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Roffle on a pause as a buyer found!

Noooo! I actually wanted to win this one!

[Kiltox]

Thank God. Couldn't donate the tickets to you this time!

[SiC]

Saab be gone soon.

 

I'm going to miss this one. Definitely won't be my last Saab!

[SiC]

Bye Saab Niner-Five!

 

[mercedade]

HOLY BUMP, BATMAN

Have found this a ridiculously useful fred for my own 9-5 2.3t.

Midway through a multi-stage ATF flush, tempted to do the oil cooler drain down instead.

[SiC]

Christ it's been 7yrs ago since I owned this. Not sure where time has gone. 

[Wgl2019]

1 hour ago, mercedade said:

HOLY BUMP, BATMAN

Have found this a ridiculously useful fred for my own 9-5 2.3t.

Midway through a multi-stage ATF flush, tempted to do the oil cooler drain down instead.

It is really quite easy on these..... I used a banjo bolt and some tubing to make it a bit less messy (connect to the cooler and straight into a measuring vessel).

Whilst you are there check the condition of the atf  cooler lines that run along the front of the subframe as they can corrode out.