The Saab Resurrection Chronicles: It Begins!

So a while back, I did a post about the death of my Saab 900 SPG via transmission explosion. It was a tragic event for me; so tragic in fact, that I went out and bought the antithesis of my beloved C900 Turbo: a Honda Accord. And while I've grown to love the Honda over the 14,000 miles or so I've put on it since August (seriously), I've come to realize that man cannot subside on VTECs alone.  In fact, 'tis a meager existence to merely pilot a vehicle like the Accord.  Since I've owned it, I've upgraded a few minor things to make it more to my liking (metal shifter bushings and a Comptech short shifter to fix the awful stock shift mechanism, and a 17mm Acura TL rear sway bar to reduce seasickness), it's never going to be the sort of vehicle that makes your hair stand up, your friends smile, or random strangers approach you in a parking lot.

It's also a vehicle that no joy can really be derived from.  Except for bragging about how low the running costs for a K-series powered Accord are, well - it's a Honda, who cares?

Meanwhile, Ingrid the 1988 Saab 900 SPG languished at a nearby mechanic's shop, getting dirtier and dirtier but no less fixed.  I was sitting on the edge.  Transmissions are hard to locate for C900's (perhaps because they've all blown up?) and a rebuild was exhorbitantly expensive - especially including the cost of labor for engine/transmission removal and reinstallation.  So I sat on it.  Didn't want to sell it for scrap and lose 90% of my investment, didn't want to spend a ton of money and then sell it and lose most of my investment, etc.  Didn't really want to sell it in the first place.  So I came to a conclusion: I'm going to fix the damn thing myself.

Dad, best friends, and Saab.

The issue here is that to remove the transmission, you also have to pull the engine.  The 900 is a fairly strange vehicle as far as the powertrain layout is concerned; the clif notes are that the engine and transmission are mounted longitudinally with the engine on top of the gearbox as one unit.  This means the whole unit comes out the top as one chunk, rather than tilting and sliding out like a normal engine.

Now, I've done a lot of mechanical work myself - water pump, thermostats, brakes, shocks, diverter valves, boost gauges, all sorts of stuff - but I've never pulled an engine.  Hell, I've never even touched an engine hoist before.  And while I've always approached mechanical issues with the idea that "I've never done this before, but hell, I got the directions," an engine pull is a bit over my head.  Step one: find someone who's doing the same thing, and help them with it.  Done.

This is my buddy Alan.  Alan is an SAE-certified Ford mechanic by day, and a horsepower guru by night.  His daily driver is a well-maintained but high-mileage Honda Prelude Type SH, and in his spare time he happens to be restoring... an Edwardian Grey 1988 Saab 900 SPG.  Weird.  Even weirder: it needs a gearbox rebuild!  Coincidences don't get much more convenient than that!

Alan was a lot further along with his engine pull than me, but when I arrived it was still sitting in the engine bay, with the passenger-side axle still attached.  After some finangeling (loosening the mounts on the alternator tensioner, blocking up the passenger side control arms to unload the cv joints, removing the ignition coil), we got that sucker out.  He's gonna need a new radiator fan shroud, but otherwise it's no worse for the wear in the engine bay.

The next day, with my head full of ideas and inspiration, I began the disassembly process.  Step one: remove the hood.  Other necessary materials can be spotted on the roof: the Robert Bentley and Haynes Service manuals, and a pack of Camel Menthols.

After the hood comes off (2 bolts!) it's time to drain the fluids.  Since the engine and transmission are coming out entirely, it'll be nice to not have to deal with leaking fluids later.  The oil and coolant (drained out of the radiator and the hard-to-reach freeze plug under the exhaust manifold on the block) both looked healthy, but as suspected, the transmission oil was a different story.

I'm not sure how well you can see it in the picture, but there's a fine layer of metal dust floating on top of the transmission lubricant - remnants of the support bearing on the primary transmission layshaft that spun itself to death a few months ago during an 18psi 2nd gear pull down my favorite back road.  This makes me quite sad.  Moving on...

After raising the car and planting it on jack stands (to drain the fluids), it's more top-end disassembly, as well as some preparation for removing the axles.  When the car is sitting level, there's no vertical force on the CV joints, but when the suspension is unloaded (such as when the car is in the air) there's a downward force on them, making them really difficult to remove once unbolted.  The Bentley manual says "insert special Saab tool number blah blah blah into the frame under the upper control arm to hold it in place."  Hey, I'm a creative guy.  I'm not going to buy an obsolete $20 tool just to prop up a control arm.  Wood does fine.

You can see a fine layer of grease sprayed on the shock on this picture - this is where I discovered another thing that'll need fixing.  The outter CV boot is split all the way around, and actually coated the inside of the wheel as well as the brake rotor in nasty CV joint grease.  That bearing'll need to be cleaned and repacked.  Hey, it's easy when they're already out, right?  At least the ball joints look to be in good shape.

The downpipe actually stays in the car when the engine comes out (although it's more rotten than Libyan politics, so it's getting replaced as well) so it's easier to just remove the elbow that connects the turbo to the downpipe.  To avoid rounding off the nuts that press the elbow against the turbo, I soaked them with Liquid Wrench (PB Blaster works well, too) for about 20 minutes, finding a really tight socket, and giving the wrench a solid smack with a hammer to loosen them.  No broken studs or anything.  A narrow straight screwdriver in between the turbo and the elbow, pounded in with a hammer, gives you enough gap to leverage the elbow off the studs.  You can barely see the 02 sensor that plugs into the bottom of the elbow down there on the battery tray.  The battery will likely be relocated to the trunk later in this project for better weight distribution - as well as fixing the horrible spot it's sitting in, getting heat soaked by the turbo.

Now it's parts and connections removal time.  One thing I decided on early on here was that every connection, no matter how seemingly obvious, was being labelled at both ends. Bolts, fasteners, that sort of junk are all going in seperate, labelled zip-lock bags.  This will greatly decrease the Pain In The Butt Factor during reassembly.  Here you can see the upper radiator hose pulled off the thermostat housing, the cast aluminum charge pipes from the turbo ? intercooler and from intercooler ? throttle body removed, the intercooler itself out (as well as the duct), and paper towels stuffed in any entry point that would be better off without crudem© in it.  That intake pipe to the turbo was the next thing to come off, after fitting with the PCV fitting for a few minutes.

The great thing about pulling the engine on a Saab hatch: there's a convenient parts-storage area located on the other end of the car.  Here you can see the intercooler (so small!), intake and MAF sensor, intake hose with PCV fitting, the two aluminum charge pipes above them, and the diverter valve hose and intercooler duct to the right.  And we're just getting started...

What's next in the pull?  Well, if the depressing rainy weather lets up around here, more top-end parts removal: fan shroud, radiator, ignition coil, and dealing with the dreaded "tapered pin from hell" - the pin that holds the shift linkage rod together.  I'll also be discussing some future plans for what exactly is going back into this car, what'll be coming out, and what the general direction for this project is.  Till next time!