As I haven't been using any cars much of late and we had to make a trip to the north, I thought that a quick 500 miles would do the Saab good. It has had a small exhaust blow for a while, but it wasn't getting worse and was from the joint behind the catalyst. So imagine my surprise when half way to the motorway (about 1.5 miles from home) it suddenly got rather noisy. I stopped in the pub car park and initially couldn't see the problem. Then I noticed that the entire exhaust had sheared off at the turbo joint. It was interesting to hold a mirror down there and see the turbo spinning. I was also impressed how clean the turbine impeller blades were. Anyway I drove home (down hill fortunately) and took another car.
So, removing the exhaust flange from the turbo was "interesting", but the special prize goes to the man who thought that putting the lambda sonde wiring connector at the back of the engine was a good idea, and then decided to use a P clip on the wiring loom as it passes over the water pump. The torx bolt (T40!!!) stripped and so we had to hacksaw through the P clip which you can only get at after removing the aircon compressor and can only see with a mirror.
I got the exhaust welded together (it was a clean fatigue/vibration break with plenty of material left) after I discovered how much Saab want for a new one.
Refitting was the reverse of removal, apart from a slight issue of not being able to screw the lambda sonde back in having fitted the exhaust as the sonde hit the water pump (same bloke who sited the connector presumably), so removed the exhaust and screwed the sonde in before refitting the combined piece.
And the exhaust still had the slight blow from the connector after the catalyst. Sadly the collar around the pipe from the cat had failed so allowing the joint to leak. Not wanting to buy a new catalyst, we cut off the two joint parts leaving plain pipe at each end. Fortunately, VW/Audi group cars now use the same size exhausts (about 60mm diameter) which are joined by a sleeve clamp. Slip one on, tighten the bolts and I have a quiet car again.
Now for that bit of rust on the second rear wheel arch.
