Condensed Shite Log - Rovering

[Surface Rust]

When I procured this fine steed from here, back in November, I vowed to document my ownership in detail.

6 months later and I'm making the first post, that should give you a flavour of the speed I work at.  Taking your time usually means doing a better job, but I reckon I'll shatter that myth here.

I bought this from @Alan_Green, and gent that he is, he delivered it during one of the many winter storms we had. This proved two things:

-it was fundamentally reliable

-Alan really wanted rid of it

Only joking, only one of those is true.

It was an immediate hit and got pressed into family and commuting duties, here it is collecting a turkey:

Running a car daily is the best way of developing a list of reasons to sell it a repair list, and after only a day I had two pressing tasks,

Firstly, removing these horrors,

These aero blades are too stiff to cope with the Saab's curvy windscreen and they juddered terribly whilst also leaving half the screen unswept.

Fixed and vision restored.

Secondly, there was a chronic misfire from cold that disappeared by the end of the road. I thought it was going to be some complicated 5th injector nonsense, but rarely for me I started with the basics before spending huge amounts of money.  

Hmm, that would do it. Never seen a plug fail like this before, wonder if it was a counterfeit one?

Running better I couldn't ignore a weird tapping noise from the back I was getting every time I changed direction. It sounded like something rolling around, but I searched everywhere in vain. Eventually after swinging the back end of the car violently from side to side on the drive (neighbours must have wondered what the hell I was doing, not for the first time), I tracked it down to the rear light cluster 

Yes, that is the remains of a bulb that was rolling around inside the cluster. I couldn't believe how noticeable it was!

To be continued...

[Surface Rust]

To expect a 34 year old soft top to be watertight is somewhat unrealistic and despite the Saab's original high build quality, things were wet that shouldn't have been. Supplied with the car was a pragmatic solution, a margarine tub for baling out purposes. The water was gathering in the tub that holds the hood when it's down. Eventually it would leak out of this into the boot and from there to the outside world (more of the consequences of that later...).

Primary culprit was the back window which was no longer attached at the bottom. Also supplied with the car was a tube of Sikaflex so I duly applied that to the window, and everything else I touched or brushed past in the process. That stuff gets everywhere and never lets go.

Fixed, mostly. A clean and coat of waterproofing solution to the rest of the hood has the rain beading pleasingly on it once more.

As mentioned, all that leaking water had left it's mark on the boot floor, and the last MoT had handily marked up the areas for attention.

As these were only advisories, my normal approach would be thus:

Fixed

However, the need to move this, 

With this,

Meant I was going to have to do something more permanent*.

Chop , chop

CAD

Several small fires and lots of swearing later,

Seal sealer hiding all the sins,

Of course, I'm ignoring this corner as it looks a lot trickier.

Anyway, I could now bolt this up and marvel at a genuine period Saab accessory.

It was a cold day, OK?!

That's better!

Still to do:

- grumbly clutch release bearing

- one headlight wiper MIA (critical feature!)

- lumpy idle when hot

[cort1977]

Oooh, much towbar envy here.

[Surface Rust]

This steed has a collection task planned for half term, so I thought I had better work my way through the rest of the to do list.

Obviously the priority was the broken headlamp wiper, however the spare motor I had was sadly for the wrong side, so I've had to park that one.

On to the noisy clutch bearing then.

900 clutches are a strange beast, you can do the whole job without ever even having to bend down, let alone grovel on the floor. This means it is a job I'm willing to tackle these days!

Plastic cover off and this is what you see

All looks original, not bad for 34 years and 112k. The bearing in question is in the middle.

Fortunately the hydraulics still worked (turns a simple job into a right pain), so with the assistance of my 11yr old I could compress the clutch and insert the special* tool (might look similar to a bike brake cable).

Everything unscrewed and eventually pried out - one dowel on the flywheel put up a bit of a fight but eventually lost to the crowbar.

Obviously I am going to change the slave and clutch too whilst in here, and just in time as the original friction plate was just about on the rivets.

Whilst it was off I couldn't resist sticking my finger in the spigot bearing hole, must be a man thing.  This had unpleasant consequences, instead of a nice smooth action it felt dry and crunchy, not what you want. I think this was the source of the nasty noises.

Fortunately I am a hoarder and knew I had one in stock somewhere.  A mere half day of searching later and I found it. I wasn't sure how to get the old one out and after watching countless videos of people filling orifices with bread(!) and grease and things I had resigned myself to removing the flywheel. One last look and the algorithm threw this up

It only bloody worked! Whipped it out in seconds and new one tapped in.

I was dead chuffed and decided to celebrate by treating the car to more new parts (in for a penny...).

[Surface Rust]

From bitter past experience I've found that replacing a slave cylinder on a neglected hydraulic system often leads to a premature failure from crud in the master cylinder, so I decided to change the master and the clutch hose whilst in here.

Access is needed from under the dash so some brief* disassembly later and most of the dash was in the back seat 

Another worthwhile job, this hole on the clevis fork should be round, that's probably about 20mm of excess pedal travel accounted for!

New one in and all back together, but just time to fix one of the cars endearing* idiosyncrasies

This was the ignition key supplied with the car

Less than ideal, and one of the reasons my other half refused to drive it (it's operation wasn't guaranteed!).

This was cause the original key had broken in the barrel and a bit was still jammed in there.

The barrel was eventually extracted (once again thanks to internet advice) and I was able to extract the key remnants.

I proceeded to blast 30 years of grit, crisps, bogeys and skin cells out of the barrel and was rewarded with a lovely smooth action with a fresh key. Result!

 

 

[DSdriver]

My solution to having a key break off in the ignition barrel was to just use the rest of the broken key to start the car and have a complete key on the keyring for the other locks.

[Surface Rust]

Realise I forgot to complete this. Following the rather satisfying key resurrection, I bunged the rest of the bits back together under the bonnet taking the opportunity to replace the water pump and rad as the pump was a little noisy and the rad looked original.

Quite a pile of old parts!

Nothing like breaking in a new clutch gently, I hitched up the big rig and headed north, it had a job to do!

And successfully collected!

Cheers @bangernomics!

Saab kept all fluids in the right places and towed beautifully in some pretty horrendous rain.

I am now forming my very own shite display in the campsite (next to an LDV as well!).

 

 

[Surface Rust]

Time for an update.

Did over 4k miles on this over the summer and since I bought this last November. It has been great fun, a firm favourite with the kids and the daily driver of choice for me, the rest of the fleet has been languishing.

Anyway, the MoT date came around far too quickly, in fact I forgot about it, enjoying the Indian summer we had until it finally dawned on me to check the date.

Yes it had expired. Arses.

I bought this knowing it had a slightly checkered MoT history but that was offset by it being the cheapest one on the road in the country.  A brief poke at the bits mentioned as advisories last year soon developed into something more serious (we all know how this goes!).

Handy yellow chalk from last year. That should be an easy fix!

Err, hang on, what's that in the background. 

Zoom, enhance!

Double arses, that looks crusty!

Anyone who's had a 900 knows that this bit around the driveshaft is their Achilles heel, renowned for being a bastard to fix. Looks like this has had some previous attention in this area, maybe just a tidy up and fresh underseal?

 

 

[Surface Rust]

Of course not!

It's had an MoT standard* repair previously and the more I probed, the worse it looked.

Ended up getting medieval with the grinder after some minor* disassembly of the front suspension.

[Surface Rust]

When you've chopped that much out of a structural bit of your car, you start to question your sanity. In order to avoid the descent into madness and signing up for a PCP on  the latest Leapmotor Squirrel or whatever, it is essential at this stage to start gluing bits of metal back in.  

That way I can tell the wife it's nearly* fixed.

I thought it best to start with the bottom of the inner and outer wing as at least they weren't holding the wheel on and I could get my eye in again with the sparkly stick.

I'm glad I did as I was having loads of trouble with the wire burning back to the tip. It made for slow and frustrating going and I was at the point of getting on the phone to Clarke to give them a piece of my mind about their welder as it's only a few years old....

Quick bit of maths, actually it's 25 years since I bought it, where the hell does time go!

So, a brief interlude for a new tip and shroud and I was back in action with a lovely controllable welder again. Oops.

Enough procrastination, on to the tricky bits.

I had to do quite a bit of cleaning up before I could work out my approach. That inevitably led to a few more holes and a few 'thin' bits. All got chopped out - I don't want to have to do this again!

That bolt you can see dangling down in free air is one of the captive* wishbone bolts. Obviously it's position is pretty important if you want to retain any kind of directional control.

This meant fitting and removing the wishbone so many times my ratchet eventually gave up!

After a brief memorial service (I'd had it since I was 15!) progress resumed.

By this stage I was starting to feel confident I wouldn't totally stuff this up.

Don't worry, it's meant to be that shape underneath. No, I don't know why. Probably the reason they bloody rot out really!

Anyway, that's where I'm up to now. 

[beko1987]

Amazing work!

[Dobloseven]

25 year old welder.A mere child! My BOC Migmaster Turbo(rebranded Cebora) is 36,and still doing its stuff.Good feelings though,when you've cut all the rot out and cleaned everything up ready for welding.And when you sweep all the debris up.And when all the welding and grinding is finished,ready for filling,sealing, painting,etc.You know then,that what can possibly go wrong,already has.

[vtec-e]

Well persevered! As you say, I would have had many doubts cutting out so much.

Looking forward to the next updates.

[Surface Rust]

Managed to squeeze a few hours in this afternoon.

The eagle eyed will have noticed a bit of a gap that needed filling between the vertical panel and the bit I welded in previously. This required a couple of small sections letting in which was quite fiddly due to limited access.

Eventually it was ready for the closing sections, these were really pleasing to fit.

Does anyone else work like this? I honestly don't know what is wrong with me.

I actually stood up yesterday and immediately tripped up as the wire for my sander had got wrapped round my ankle. Don't be like me, FFS tidy up your work area!

I digress, the final* bit!

I've smeared around some seam sealer and will slap some paint on tomorrow.

Then I get the exciting task of reassembling it all.

I really hope it fits!

[Andyrew]

2 hours ago, Surface Rust said:

Does anyone else work like this? 

Yes , Always end up with a messy workshop. I'm trying to change my tidy up after mindset but it's not working too well.

However when doing welding work I will always tidy the tools into a pile for the next session as it just ends up like chaos, wire tangled up, Sharp metal and shite everywhere.

Nice repairs BTW!

[Surface Rust]

I realise I never concluded* this.

I spaffed plenty of paint and Dynax wax about the place to preserve everything.

Obviously the aim of the game was another years MOT and I worked my way through most of the previous years advisories including two thoroughly knackered balljoints (the boots had totally disintegrated, sadly too common now).

I'd also noticed that the offside caliper was very stiff and I couldn't get the piston to return all the way in. Whilst the brakes seemed fine I thought that the original calipers had probably had their day and replaced them. 

It was finally time to get some return on my substantial investment in kids as my eldest is now old enough to help bleed brakes, makes these jobs a lot easier!

The final advisory from last year was on the handbrake, I adjusted this till I thought I'd made it better, but the nearside caliper didn't seem to respond to the adjustment. I thought it was better, but it failed on handbrake imbalance.

What was weird was that the nearside rear caliper had clearly already been replaced once, the offside still looked original. Anyway, I replaced it again and it was much better, finally getting a pass just before Christmas.

There wasn't much point in taxing it till the new year, so I celebrated its return to the road with a trip to Stony Stratford.

Even managed the drive home with the top down in the sunshine (and heater on full!).

Back in daily service now.

[Surface Rust]

I've decided to condense all my shite tinkering into one thread, mainly for reasons of laziness, but also cause I've got too many cars so I end up flitting between them.

I've owned this P4 since 2012, and I've loved seeing more of them crop up on here recently. It's been bittersweet though, as my own had finally accumulated so many endearing* characteristics that it's been parked up for the last two years.

Here it is in happier times.

Inspired by @Lankytim and @TrabbieRonnie diligent exploits in fixing theirs I decided to get my finger out finally.

The straw that broke the camels back and took mine off the road was a massive fracture in the exhaust manifold, this would gradually gas you as you drove, and coupled with the WW2 fighter aircraft soundtrack, it was putting off my passengers.

That was only the start of the list though:

- Petrolly smells from the rear when negotiating roundabouts enthusiastically (combined with the exhaust fumes this made a very heady mix)

- intermittent horrific grating noises from the clutch when cold 

- leaking core plug at the back of the block

- non-existent rear gearbox mount that was causing the manifold/ downpipe joint to loosen with depressing frequency, further adding to the fumigation 

- fresh air flap stuck closed (compounding the above)

- heater tap so stiff it needed pliers to turn

 - leaky front screen

 

Just a few things then. 

As there seem to be a critical mass of brokenness in the vicinity of the gearbox, and having seen Lankytim make the removal look easy, I thought I should start there.

Removing the box simply* requires the removal of; both front seats, carpet, transmission tunnel, clutch linkage, propshaft, passenger door (too tight in my garage), and jury rigging an overly complex gearbox hoist made from all your trolley jacks, a scaffold bar, and a ratchet strap.  You might not need the hoist if you don't have a soft office body like mine.

Ta da!

With the gearbox out, examination for signs of borkage began.

I was pretty convinced it was the release bearing making the racket when the clutch was in and cold.  Lankytim even sent me his spare bearing gratis (true gent) so I could replace it.

What I hadn't realised is that the release bearing is actually inside the gearbox, and runs in oil. Consequently it looks and feels like new.

I'm happy to be told otherwise, bit I don't think this is the problem.

Further examination focussed on the spigot bearing.

This looks pretty rogered.

I'm not sure how, but it seems to be worn on one side, and it is very rough inside. The gearbox input shaft is a bit shiny but doesn't seem damaged, so I'm hoping it is just this bearing that is the problem.

Whilst pondering this development, I took a look at the rear gearbox mount and was relieved to definitely find one source of a problem when it fell out in my hand.

Totally fucking fucked mate. Big time.

It was pretty easy to press a new one in. Everyone needs a 44mm Citroen rear hub socket in their toolbox (even if it's never actually been used on my Citroen).

I also pressed out the spigot bearing, and it didn't look much cleverer. I'm wondering if it went in a bit wonky originally?

Anyway, I've ordered a new clutch plate, a spigot bearing and am awaiting their arrival.

[TrabbieRonnie]

Great work there man, I will watch with interest!  That gearbox removal method should be in the handbook!

The perfect inspiration I needed for tomorrow's exploits on mine (very rainy today unfortunately), which should see my tank back in and her back on her wheels.

If it makes you feel better, my fresh air vent doesn't either!  Lovely car, thanks for sharing and good luck with the repairs 👍.

[robt100]

When I first saw the thread title, I was going suggest more fibre 🤣

Nice to see some progress on the P4, I wonder if maybe its partly the clutch not being aligned properly last time, or some flex from the damage rear mount has put uneven pressure on the bearing causing the wear?

[Peter C]

Absolutely love the P4.

If only all RWD cars had removable transmission tunnels.

[grogee]

On 25/05/2025 at 10:29, Surface Rust said:

watching countless videos of people filling orifices with bread(!) and grease and things I had resigned myself to removing the flywheel. One last look and the algorithm threw this up

It only bloody worked! Whipped it out in seconds and new one tapped in.

Sorry I'm late to this thread. But it's great reading. 

Could you elaborate on what exactly your removal technique was for the centre / pilot bearing please? 

[Surface Rust]

27 minutes ago, grogee said:

Sorry I'm late to this thread. But it's great reading. 

Could you elaborate on what exactly your removal technique was for the centre / pilot bearing please? 

It's so simple, but it relies on there being a blind hole behind.

You place a nut on a bolt behind the bearing, then stop the nut from turning with a flat screwdriver. As you then tighten the bolt against the bottom of the blind hole the nut jacks the bearing out.

Video summarises it far better than I can:

https://share.google/cp0df1vZu1YFQnJ3b

 

[2flags]

Great to see the work done on the Saab. Love the Rover P4. It's the one Rover I've never owned or driven. 

[Surface Rust]

Not done one of these before!

Excitement and trepidation in equal measures as this is a bucket list car for me. So far I've made a 4.8m space on the driveway and am enjoying breakfast:

 

[Surface Rust]

First mode of transport:

It all got a bit unseemly and I had to run for a bit, but second mode of transport achieved:

That's right, headed towards THAT London.

This thing is no longer desired or welcome in the leafy suburbs that were once it's stomping ground.

Train smells strongly of disinfectant. I made sure the seat was dry before sitting down.

[TrabbieRonnie]

Chodspeed!

[Surface Rust]

Second train achieved.

Though I'd far rather be on the steam special service that was heading north. Sorry, no pics, but it completely filled the station with steam and smoke. Brilliant.

I think they were cheating slightly as it had a diesel pusher as well!

[hairnet]

c10? t90?

 

[EyesWeldedShut]

Saab with a Noob Tune

[Surface Rust]

No right answers yet.

Final train achieved.

With just enough time to grab a posh breakfast.

It was delicious to be fair.

It looks like it's going to be a nice day, for a change. Hopefully a good omen.

The manufacturer of this car is not from the land of the rising sun, however they were feeling the pressure from those manufacturers in terms of quality and equipment.

In my opinion this sadly led to them abandoning the values that had shaped their cars in the previous 100 years. This is from the end of that era.