Cabin Air Filter Replacement, All Saabs

For whatever reason, most of the cars I see have never had the cabin air filter replaced. Maybe Wright and Cochran are skipping them in the major services they're doing, or clients are being naughty and skipping their scheduled maintenance!

The filter does exactly what the title says it does, filter the outside air that flows into your car. All the air you and your family breathe with the windows up passes through this thing, so it's important to make sure it's working properly. The units I use also have a charcoal residue built in to the filter which eliminates outside smells from coming into the cabin!

I change it on almost every major service I do, and here's why:


Old filter v. new, on a 7yr old car with 91,000 miles.

This is a picture taken by head technician Anders at Swedecar in California showing how clogged up the housing around the filter can get. The cowl cover that typically covers the filter is removed in this photo. Anders reported that by clearing out the housing and replacing the filter, the customers air conditioning temperature dropped by almost 10 degrees!!!



Have you had yours replaced?

T7 Crankcase updates... 9-3's and 9-5's, listen up!

Hey everyone,

Now that the big 3 have been wrapped up, I'm going to move onto some general maintenance related things.

Now, there are many things I could start with here... fuel filters, spark plugs, radiator hoses, whatever. To me, however, there is something much more important. This does not apply to everyone, just T7 cars (00-03CV 9-3's and 1999-2006 9-5's).

To the applicable, let me tell you a story. Somewhere, in 1997 Sweden, engineers sat around, pencils behind ears and coffee pots overflowing, and designed the 9-3 and 9-5 to follow the NG900 and the 9000. They tested the cars beyond comprehension, putting them on earthquake-like suspension testers, driving them into barrels that simulated Moose's, and doing countless laps on the race tracks of Europe. Not a detail was missed!

:cough:except for the design of the crankcase system:cough:

":P.s cough:"....and the fuel pump access hole in the 9-3. That too. ":P.s. cough:"

Anyway, what I'm getting at here, is that these engines flowed crankcase gasses about as well as ice flows downstream... it just doesn't. It stays and builds up, and eventually, bad things happen.

A message to the engineers who designed the crankcase system, and put the catalytic converter so close to the oil pan...









That's kind of the story with the T-7 engine. At idle, none of the gasses generated by the crankcase system get ventilated and what results, amongst other things, is SLUDGE. Say it with me now... SLUDGE.


....Sluuuuuudge.

One last time... Sluuuuudge.

Saab realized this was a problem about the same time the attorneys for all the people effected were sending out their affidavits to the judge, attempting to get money from Saab for engine replacements paid for out of pocket.

Sludge kills engines, but usually will kill a turbo first. What happens is the oil feed line that supply's the precious lubrication to the turbo cakes up with sludge and flow gets cut off to the turbo (think Macdonald's lover needing a triple bypass). Without lubrication, the turbo overheats and cooks the bearings, seals, and eventually will shred the compressor wheel from all the play in the shaft.

A turbo I pulled from a 1999 9-5

Did I mention I rebuild turbos? The reason I got into doing this was how many I was seeing from cooked and sludged engines that it was lucrative enough for me to start doing in house. Anyway, more on that later.

I borrowed these photos from Anders (the Saab expert, if you ask me), they are from his TSN gallery. They show a severe sludge problem in the T7 engine.

Sludged camshaft area underneath the valve cover

A sludged oil pickup screen

Saab rectified the sludge issue with a few different update kits for the crankcase vent system, finally ending up with crankcase update number 6. You can tell if your car has this by looking for these hoses:

When you bring your T7 Saab in for service, this is THE first thing I always check for (unless it's not running, or something...)

The moral here is that sludge is real, and must be addressed. Change your oil, and change it often, always using Mobil 1 synthetic (you do use synthetic, right?) and Genuine Saab or Mann filters. Taking 20 minutes to pull your valve cover and do a sludge inspection can save your car, and will also put your mind at ease when you find a clean and lovely honeypot of oil under there.

In theory.

Oh yeah, I forgot. If you're replacing a blown turbo due to sludge or oil cooking, ALWAYS replace the oil feed pipe too. Install the new one with the old pipe and you might as well leave all the bolts decently loose, because you will be turning them again next week. Write that down.

Chuck Andrews, owner of Andrews of Princeton, does some great writing for NINES magazine and has many of his informative articles posted in PDF format on his website for you to read, you can check them out here.

Check out Anders Gallery at TSN for interesting and eye opening Saab photos.

Take care and keep the dirty side down,
-Chad

Fuel Pumps, all models

For the final installment of the big 3 common failures I most often note on my clients cars, I will be talking about fuel pumps.

A Walbro brand fuel pump

The name of the thing is pretty self explanatory, no?

The pump is submerged within your gas tank and pumps fuel from the tank to the engine. If you listen very, very carefully while your car is running you can lightly hear it in most Saabs.

Saab OEM pumps are made by Bosch, and will usually last 100,000 miles or so. It is not part of any scheduled service, it is just one of those items whose day comes when it goes out.

Pumps often fail upon startup, they will simply not come on and the car will fail to start. Typically they will sputter and attempt to start a bit, but without sustained fuel pressure the system cannot manage to fire fuel through the injectors and ignition cannot occur.

The fuel pump lives inside a basket within the tank that contains the pump, a pre-filter, and also has the sending unit for the fuel level gauge built in.

The pump rests inside the basket

This particular pump is from my Stage 5 tuned 1994 9000 Aero. I have replaced the factory pump with a larger, higher flowing pump, a Walbro 255LPH. This pump is the most common for racing applications that require more fuel supply to the engine.

My Walbro 255LPH pump installed

Fuel pump replacement on a c900, 9000, or 9-5 takes about 1-1.5hrs. On a OG9-3, it takes about 3 hours because removal of the gas tank is required. The fuel pump inserts run about $180. Your dealer will attempt to replacement the entire basket assembly instead of the pump insert, and list price of the assembly is over $600. By replacing only the insert, it saves me time and you money, so we both come out on the plus side.

That's all for now

Take care,
-Chad

The Saab Direct Ignition (DI) System, most models

Hello again,

Following my list of 3 common Saab failures that will leave you on the side of the road, I wanted to discuss the direct ignition system found on your Saab. If you have a 9000 turbo (91-98), NG900 turbo (94-98), 9-3 (99-02), or 9-5 (99-present), then your car incorporates the direct ignition technology developed by Saab in the late 80's.

Direct Ignition... it just sounds fancy, right?

As you know (or may not know), Saab prides itself in turbo charging. Turbochargers increase engines efficiency by forcing air into the engine, which ultimately creates more power. By doing this, it is possible to make a 4 cylinder perform at the level of many v6 and v8 engines, providing not only power, but fuel economy (everybody say yeeeah!). The advances of turbocharging, and Saabs innovation with turbochargers, outgrew the performance and ability provided by distributor style ignition systems, so Saab developed the DI system to work with its new Trionic systems. The DI also cleans the plugs after you shut the car off. It runs through a 5 second burn off cycling, in which time it ignites all the plugs with very hot spark to clean the ignition surfaces of the plug!.

A Direct Ignition cassette, this one is red which indicates that this is a T5 system

What the DI system does is eliminate all of the common ignition components found on conventional ignition systems for a more... turbo friendly? ignition system. The ignition system is managed by Saabs Trionic software, which comes in two (technically 3) versions, Trionic 5 and Trionic 7. The MY93 9000's had a special version of T5 different from all others (94-98).

Also, for owners of 2003+ 9-3's, your Saab has a coil pack ignition system, which has 1 individual coil pack per cylinder and is operated by Saabs Trionic 8 system. I have yet to deal with this system enough to comment on any failure trends.

The DI system is housed within the DI cassette which sits on top of your engines spark plugs and ignites them with an electrical charge generated within the cassette. It is essentially a computer. It also can read knock and spark temperature through the spark plug itself, a capability distributor style ignition systems would never be able to incorporate.

Here we see the inner workings of a T5 DI cassette

Now, why is all of this important to you? These DI's commonly fail, and the vehicle will cease to operate immediately upon failure. The most common failure pattern I tend to see with them is an overheating of the small pocket of oil inside of the DI, which will then spill out into the circuitry. I'm not sure which comes first in this case, the chicken or the egg, but either it overheats and spills, frying the circuits, or spills from the circuits overheating.

What causes this?

No really, I'm asking you.

What I'm saying is that there is not really a common point at which these DI's fail. I've heard tell of a friend of mine putting on a brand new one from Saab, and it failing a week later. My 1994 9000 Aero made it 200k miles on its original DI cassette, yet some only go 60k. The DI is not a service item, and is never replaced by Saab unless it fails. I personally keep a spare on hand at all times in my trunk, because you really are at the mercy of it when you're driving.

A T7 Black DI, you can also see the boots which sit on the spark plugs

Replacing a DI is simple and only takes a matter of minutes, failures can often be identified by the smell that a DI puts off after failing, one of a burnt electronic nature. The lesson here is check your DI, there is a date code stamped on the label underneath. It will read something like 0250. The first two digits indicate the year, and the last two indicate the week. 0250 would mean a DI made in 2002 on the 50th week. Remember though, this does not indicate when the DI was installed, just when it was produced. If you have an older DI, I would suggest purchasing a spare to keep, just in case.

I keep both T7 and T5 used DI's on hand, price for T5 used DI's is $150 and $125 for T7 DI's. The two must not be interchanged, as they are meant to work specifically with the T5 or T7 system. As I already mentioned, T5 DI's are red and T7 are black. If any of you Saab-o-philes feel otherwise about DI interchangeability, this is not the place to discuss it.

However, this is. =)

There is also a recall on T7 DI cassettes, I will check your car for this during service to see if it has been done.

Anywho, I'll be doing some less common jobs over the next few days (vent flap motor on a 87 9000 Turbo with Automatic Climate Control, a transmission flush and filter replacement on a c900 automatic, and a Manifold Absolute Pressure sensor on a 9-5), I will post about all of that by the end of the week when they are completed.

Take care until next time,
-Chad

9-3 Sport Sedan Headlight Wiring

Hey there,

Today I encountered what is becoming a more and more common problem on the early (MY2003) 9-3 Sport Sedans.

The wiring that connects to the headlamp socket, which holds the bulb for your low beam headlight and provides power to it, becomes corroded and fails. This leads to loss of a headlamp, but provides great fun for those who love a good sporting game of Padiddle.

See: Padiddle

Anywho, the good news is that the repair is simple. GM have encountered the problem enough to the point where they have created a repair piece that splices into the old headlamp wiring and is already wired into the bulb socket. This way, you get a reliable connection and do not have to mess with rewiring the bulb socket internally.

Steps involved:

Remove front bumper



Remove headlamp



Splice and fit repair kit w/bulb
Re-install headlamp
Re-install front bumper

Job cost:
Parts - $20
Labor - 1hr

I'm going to try to remember to take my digital camera with me when I work from now on, but for now cell phone pictures will do!

Take care,
-Chad