New 9000 acquisition

[carrera]

This week I collected this, a '97 2.3 CSE, quite a bit of history, 132k miles, but stood for a while....

I gave her a quick wash' n polish today

Now I need to decide what to do with her.

Needs a pair of headlights, rear panel, exhaust is broken at centre cat, SRS light will not go out & alternator seems a bit lazy at 11.6v. Nice & clean interior.

[sgould]

I always used to fancy a 9000, but they were just too expensive.  When I bought my last new car, forced by a need for a car with no sunroof because i'm tall, I ended up  with a Rover 620i.  The Rover was £13000 on the road, the Saab non-turbo was £18000.

[phoenix]

Nice. That reminds me I need to sort the MOT on mine!

[carrera]

I have been ordering / collecting various 9000 bits this week. I'm hoping to get some of them fitted over the weekend, but have friends visiting the area so will be spending some time with them.

Biggest challenge might be the SRS problem. There's an error code (can't remember which one), which comes back immediately after clearing. The horn has been removed & someone has suggested this might mean it's the clock spring.

A bit of internet sleuthing has resulted in having Service Manual 8.6 - the SRS bit, so I might have half a chance of diagnosing the problem, rather than part swapping.

I have high hopes for the new voltage regulator, with much longer brushes than are currently fitted 

[carrera]

Well, mixed results this morning:

Voltage regulator: Didn't fit, grrr

SRS Module: Got it out and it's definitely faulty



Seems like it might just be a couple of resistors, but I would need to find out / confirm the rating & I think I need to get a magnifying light to do this work. The top of the board is undamaged

So there has to be some good news. Well I was curious as to whether it was a 170 hp LPT or a 200 hp FPT, so armed with a 9000 VIN decoder took a look.

Well, to discover that it is fitted with a B234R engine was a bit of a surprise to say the least    VIN is YS3CFR65R7W1xxxxxx if anyone else would like to check. I can't see any other Aero bits. I'm very confused.

[phoenix]

Late Anniversary models had the Aero engine. This confirmed by the 8th digit of the VIN being 'R'

[carrera]

Yeah, that's the method I used to identify the engine, and the engine number from the V5

I've heard it mentioned many times, but it was never clear to me what makes a car an Anniversary edition. I thought that the half wood steering wheel was a marker, but this car doesn't have that fitted. The Aero parts bin wasn't raided for body parts... double checked that already

Perhaps I should have a look at the suspension codes

[carrera]

Some successes this morning:

I acquired a used SRS unit to identify the resistor values, plugged it in & after a brief Tech II session, the SRS light is out

Big red relay had the contacts reflowed and now I have full beam on the headlights 

However, a replacement voltage regulator has not fixed the low output from the alternator, so it seems more fundamental so will need to take the alternator off, which means dealing with the belt tensioner 

Idle speed seems off kilter too. When started from cold at goes up to 1500+ rpm, then when restarted with a bit of heat in it, it's down at 530 rpm which moves up to 750 rpm as it gets warm. No misfires being shown. After 10 minutes running the battery needs a recharge as well, she won't turn over

Hmm, just put a spare fully charged battery on & she's ticking over at 2400 RPM, seems I need the alternator fixed & some thinking time

[sgould]

I have no direct experience of the B204/B234 engine, but I understood that the idling was controlled by a separate Idle Control Valve which can block up.

[carrera]

That's helpful, because I saw via Tech II when I was checking if the intake temperate was being read correctly that the IAC was at 39% and PWM was 100%

No idea what normal is, I suppose I'll find out later 

[carrera]

This looks promising - courtesy of Biil J ?

https://www.saab9000.com/procedures/fuel/iac.php

[phoenix]

Yes, the IAC valve is known source of trouble for poor idle- providing it's not a dreaded TCS car.

But you'll be struggling with control of everything until you get a stable battery/alternator.

[carrera]

Thanks, not got to the IAC yet, but have acquired a SRS unit to discover what value the blown resistors are:

Seems it's a pair of 28.7 ohm resistors in parallel

The other 6 resistors all check out as comparable though the 3rd from the left is goving different readings in situ (29k ohm) than the 315k ohm the colours suggest

I can see how to rebuild the board traces, all except for the narrow trace that goes underneath where the 2 blown resisters were. It doesn't look like the trace goes to the other side of the board, but I might need to do some more checking

Anyway, here's some piccies of good and bad

[phoenix]

Before doing that, I'd try checking the transistor next to them as it may have got toasted.

[carrera]

Hmm, I was wondering about that 

Will need to go looking for how to test a transistor, it's been a while