Ownership Verified: My Topless Swedish Model

Public: you're a bad influence on dave. It won't take long and he'll start detailing the car and maybe even fixing some of its issues. :)
 
Davetouch said:
Definitely need parking sensors. Will leave mine as is for the moment but if it starts flaking off I'll have to sort it out.
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Or, you know, you could take the top down and stop sucking. ;)
 
I parallel parked the 900S in front of my apartment last night. It's somewhat more of a squeeze than throwing the 205 into any spot that looks about the right size. :p
 
BlaRo said:
Or, you know, you could take the top down and stop sucking. ;)
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To spend 30 seconds at each end of a 5 minute drive to work at 8am? Too much effort. :p Ill have a bike soon so the car will be retired then.

Still tempted by the staff car lease scheme :p If I was a graduate (and therefore on a graduate wage) I would have a nice new second car already. :lol:
 
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Return to car after work today...

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Hmm... Who would park it so badly?!?

Also the numberplate came off. Thinking about it I think I noticed it was lower on one side, so I guess the glue gave up. I just need a drill to drill some holes in it, since glue is useless. There are even holes for the bolts! <_<
 
Just use long enough sheet metal screws they'll go through something sooner or later.
 
Glue? Drill? 3M double sided tape ftw
 
To be honest it hasn't come off again since. If the current sticky stuff stops being sticky I'll get some glue on it, but I'll eventually drill it. Might get new plates as well because I don't like the dealer's advert on the bottom of the plate, and I don't like the EU/GB logo on the front. :p
 
I wish I could remember what make the two-sided tape it was that I used to adhere a router to a wall once. I was told that it was some serious shit, and when it came the time to remove the router, at first I was all "this is coming off no problem, what's all the fuss about?" right until I noticed what was coming off wasn't so much the tape as much as the plaster on the wall. A sober me would be compelled to post a picture of a backside of the router with some white plaster sticking to it, but he's off duty right now, so you'll just have to imagine it.

But yes, 3M (probably) doublesided tape will have you set for life. In as much as when you pull the plates, the paint will come off with them.
 
3M is always king when it comes to sticking something to something else. Their transparent double-sided tape with red transparent film is awesome.

They also make something called Dual Lock that works like velcro, but it's unisex... in that there's only one type of it, and it sticks to itself. Normal velcro has two halves. It clicks together with a satisfying snap and doesn't come off easily.
 
I'm replacing my front plate mount with an aluminium one as soon as convenient. I found one at a junkyard already.
 
^ Yeah I don't have plate mounts; just holes in the boot/bumper. If my plates got stolen, I would report it immediately and try not to drive it much. If I can also get identifiable features done that would be great, like gunmetal wheels.

Thujalvi said:
But yes, 3M (probably) doublesided tape will have you set for life. In as much as when you pull the plates, the paint will come off with them.
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As great as that sounds; that isn't exactly what I want. I like being able to take the plates off and clean begin them occasionally. Or if I wanted to change them.
 
Small update; gave the Swede a good rub down today. Needed a clean, but is still filthy. It needs a complete respray, but that ain't going to happen at a few times the value of the car. I want to keep it, but I may just have to live the outside of the car is a mess. Also could do with a new roof - but its still waterproof at least. Maybe a complete professional compound polish could do the trick and improve it a load. At the same time there's quite a few tiny chips dotted about. Still; expensive solutions to a problem that doesn't affect it seriously. Would be a long way off since there are other more pressing matters...

Speaking of which; the same day I got paid I ordered these;
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Toyo T1R 225/45/17s. And there's 4 of them! And they're all the same! And they're new! And they cost me ?300 delivered. Not bad if you ask me...

Then this happened;
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Rides better now. And it doesn't scurry around anywhere near as much on bumpy roads. Feels much more planted and safer :) Cost ?40 to fit/balance.

As for other goings on; I had a revelation about my new suspension (when its fitted). This is my driveway;
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Note I have lowering suspension, which means that once its on, I have to find a way to make sure I don't hit this wall every time I get back. People have suggested reversing in, but frankly its a massive pain to do so and a hell of a lot easier to reverse out into the big open space. I just hope I can find something once its on, otherwise I will need a new bumper...

Speaking of bumpers; remember I reversed into someone in the work carpark (again remember no damage to their old school black solid bumper; my modern soft one with paint took the brunt). Finally got a pic of the damage;
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It annoys me, but less so because the state of the bodywork is so dire. If I had done this after a respray I would not be so happy... I can see it chipping more with the winter/over time. Maybe if it gets bad I'll get a new bumper or respray it. I've considered calling one of those accident repair people who come to your house in a van, sort it out there. Still a few hundred monies, though, which I don't need. If I find a same coloured one in a breakers yard maybe I'll just get a new/second hand bumper. Amongst other things.
 
Finding more common problems with Saabs due to poor components. Strange how this keeps happening... :lol:

Firstly; got some silicone hose to replace the old, completely fucked/cracked/deteriorated rubber vacuum hoses. Need to get some more of different sizes to replace more of it.

Also through a mod have discovered that a couple of one way valves in the vacuum system are buggered, so they'll need replacing. This 'mod' basically bypasses these valves in some way. By letting backpressure through them they confuse the car which cuts boost early, hence its been down on power. Now pulls a fair bit harder, for sure. Once I get the boost leak sorted this thing will be ridiculous fast. :D

However the boost leak (and massive TURBOPOWERNOISE[SUP]TM[/SUP]) still exists; I replaced a bad O-Ring in the bypass valve pipe, and all the other pipes look and feel fine but alas its still there :(

Otherwise it sounds a little rough at the moment...or rather exactly like a tractor; this is with the car up to temp... It needs a service but I hope there isn't a hole in the exhaust as I have other things to sort out before that.


Also a bit of white smoke (at 7secs) from something leaking onto the exhaust; probably oil.
 
It's worth checking the slop in the impeller bearings, once they go an oil leak isn't far away. I had 2 turbos go that way on me in the space of a year.
 
I checked it when I had the downpipe off for the sump; nothing I could feel at all. I will check the other side when I get round to removing the manifold for the gaskets and the inevitably breaking studs... <_<

Still have a broken stud I need to drill out on the turbo so I need to remove that at some point, too. Kip said removing the turbo is easier than the sump, but still... :lol: Needs to be done, though, and before you ask the turbo/downpipe connection isn't a gasket type so I'm sure it doesn't leak.
 
So uh... I fixed it.

It no longer sounds like a tractor, no longer whines/whistles/TURBOBOOSTNOISE[SUP]TM[/SUP] under boost, and pulls a lot harder/boosts a lot more now. :cool:

Holy fuck I love this car more than ever. This is insanely quick. And the engine sounds so sweet now I can actually hear it.

So the problem? Well I finally got some tools, and got down to the turbo. And...well there's no other way to put this. The bolts between the exhaust manifold and the turbo. They were loose. All 4 of them. Yeah... :|

Picture showing the 4 bolts at the end of the manifold and the heat shield that covers them hence I didn't notice until I could remove that. I don't know why I didn't check them when I had the shield off ages ago, but whatever.

I think there's still a bit of a leak so I've got a new turbo gasket on the way and today picked up the exhaust gasket as well as a rocker cover gasket because its leaking a bit of oil. The extra boost also came from the discovery that a few non-return valves in the boost control system had failed and were letting air back through, confusing the system and cutting boost early. New ones are waiting to go in but there is a temporary bypass fix in place at the moment hence extra BOOOOooOoooOOOST. It used to show boost to halfway through the yellow section of the gauge, now it heads 3/4 of the way through, as I think there is still a bit more to come and it is supposed to go right to the end of the yellow.
 
^ Yeah the tyres don't half improve the handling. It now grips when turning left...AND right :-o

Anyway; this weekend. I serviced it (which included resetting the ECU now it shouldn't be sucking in quite so much fresh air and buggering the air/fuel mix). Hopefully the economy should go up again... Its currently sitting at 24mpg (20mpg US, 9.8l/100km) which isn't exactly great... glugluglugluglug I'm just glad fuel prices have dropped by about 10p per litre in the past months (now at about ?1.26 p/l if you were wondering).

Anyway I still need to change the oil (so yes that means its still got the roadtrip oil in it) since I forgot to take the new oil when I serviced it at a mates house, then forgot to bring his oil pan back so now that'll have to happen next weekend. <_< I also wanted to change the rear shocks today as well, but after taking out the boot carpet to get at the top I decided against it because I didn't have the right size socket, no WD40 and no pliers/grips to get the top nut off. So I reassembled the boot and will do it next weekend.

Also the brakes need doing soon. They're still not very good. I'll start shopping around.

I cleaned it, and removed the SE badges (they annoyed me), and gave it a new FG sticker.

SE badges before - and now:
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And the new FG sticker:
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Old one was the same size as the roadtrip one but at the top of the screen. I'll probably remove the roadtrip one as it doesn't go with the black. I wanted to have the slightly smaller FG sticker, but mucked it up (despite my history with excellent vinyl jobs) so had to bin it.
 
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