TSG's Unified Fleet Thread

[thesameguy]

But but but...

I had not considered that, but solid point.

Srsly, know the feeling on the bumper and "this is why we can't have nice things." I just had to replace the silver Z's side skirt after someone ran over a curb with it. [In addition to all the clips used to fasten it, there are a good 8 bolts holding it in place - ain't gonna fall off with cone contact at autocross, like the ND Miata is prone to do.]

It's fair that you get a pass - sometimes when you get a new car you don't quite know the limitations and you learn the hard way... One day after getting the Viggen I tagged a curb at work. Learned my lesson. This is not even remotely the first time she's run the Aero into something. I hope taking a grand out of our finances will be a lasting reminder that it's not okay. Don't. Hit. Things. Failure is punishable by Hyundai!!! (Although I do keep eyeballing a Juke Nismo across the street...)

Learn lots on solving that boost problem so you can help me diagnose and fix my friend's Supra this fall. The second turbo can't hold boost.

I'm on board with that! I haven't ever encountered such an elusive problem before. I have had a fair number of turbo cars, and I have accumulated a fair number of tools to help find boost problems but they're all proving useless. Admittedly, a big part of the problem is that XR4Ti's have crap throttle bodies that leak boost, so I have to "listen around" the throttle body, but the major issue is that this problem comes and goes rapidly. I can't even rationalize what component would cause that. It's like a solenoid randomly opening and closing... but I don't have any. I thought maybe the bypass valve, but I swapped it with a known good one... and, really, if the bypass valve was leaking boost there would be a pretty funny sound from the air filter. So, I don't know. Now I'm working by process of elimination. We'll see how that goes.

[thesameguy]

Looks like the Aero's replacement bumper is scheduled for delivery on Monday. Not sure I can get it to the paint guy before Wednesday or Thursday, so I guess the Aero is gonna be down for couple more weeks. Kinda sucks, but whaddayagonnado? In the interim at least the Suburban is getting some exercise, and hopefully it means adequate time to get the SPG finished... or, as finished as it can be given I am missing one single, solitary, unobtanium nut. Who needs a passenger seat???

I don't think the Jag's interior is due back for another week, but hopefully reassembly on that is quick. It too is missing one single, solitary piece... albeit trim and hopefully slightly more obtainable.

October's weekends are a tad compromised due to audial awesomeness:

15th = Punk in Drublic: http://punkindrublicfest.com/sacramento/
21st & 22nd = Aftershock: https://aftershockconcert.com/lineup/

It's a lot of guitar, with no Burning Man EDM to balance it out, but I think I'll be okay.

[thesameguy]

Oh, yeah, forgot the other cartastrophe...

Got a text from the girl's mom last week saying she was going to take the Benz to Colorado and asked if there was anything she should do ahead of time. I said check the tires & go.

She, instead, took it to The Shop (I don't remember the name) to have them look at it. They came back with leaky valve cover gasket (*barely* true), cracked guibo (maybe true), and leaky diff (maybe true). She asked what she should have them do, and I told her to consider having them reseal the diff, but nothing else was worthwhile at this point. It's old, she doesn't drive it much, and none of that was critical. I told her to ask the owner, Oscar, if the diff was really leaky or not, how critical it was. Radio silence. Two days later "I replaced the guibo, the valve cover gasket, and had them do the diff. Total bill was like $800, $500 of which was the guibo. Complete waste of money, but whatever. I asked her what Oscar said about the diff... "Oh, Oscar left. New guy is Carl." JFC, we don't know Carl, why are you listening to Carl? Whatever, what's done is done. $800 of work on a $2000 car. Nice.

Two days go by.... Sunday another text: When I was backing out the other day, the car would not go into drive. I put in back in reverse and then into drive again and it caught. I asked Carl what he thought, he didn't know." I asked her if this problem was before or after they worked on it, she says after. Great, so I don't trust Carl now. Car has zero issues for four years, and suddenly Carl does a pile of work and now the transmission doesn't shift properly. I know old cars are finicky and it's entirely possible it's coincidence, but, man, I can't shake the feeling that old lady comes in with old Benz and this fucking Carl guy takes advantage. I drove it pretty hard back in April and there was zero signs of any issues... it's probably only done 2,000 miles since then.

In any case, she has had the car for 3.5 years, which is 1.5 years longer than I intended. With Oscar gone and my prejudice towards Carl already seeded, plus possible early signs of transmission failure, it's time for the Benz to go. It had a good run. I'm not sure what's up next, but I have about six months to nail it down.

[thesameguy]

ZOMG TODAY.

Didn't sleep last night, went to work so I could have the day to work on the SPG. Got home around 10am and dug in. Got the rear tweeters installed, alarm siren mounted, stereo half-installed so I could test the amp & speakers. I was ROCKING. Everything worked as it should, so I started putting tools away, bundling wiring, and cleaning up the interior with the intention of putting the driver's seat back in. SMOOOOOOOOOTH. Around 1pm, I decided to turn the key.

SPG sprang to life and settled into a nice idle. A little clattering from the boost control solenoid, but otherwise rock-solid. I let it run for about 3 minutes and then turned it off. Well, I turned the key off. The car kept running. That was unexpected. I pulled the fuel pump fuse and it died. Then I spent an hour going over all my Trionic wiring and coming up completely empty handed. I made some interesting little wire pieces with various terminals on them so I could bypass various things and see why the ECM kept running even with the key off, and narrowed it down to the actual ignition switch wire - with the key off there was still 5v coming across that wire, keeping the ECM alive.

Panic set in. Self-destructing wiring is not limited to door jambs in '85 Saabs (and Volvos).



Maybe I missed something somewhere. Maybe things got worse while the car was sitting. So maybe possibilities. Out came the fuse panel, time to start chasing wires.

After another hour, I found the actual circuit back-feeding the system... the instrument cluster. FML, it's my wiring for the speedometer. Of course it is. All that monkeying around trying to cure the hanging needle and I jacked something up.

EXCEPT I DIDN'T. I ripped all that apart, no change. So I started isolating things in the instrument cluster... fortunately in 1985 those circuits are all pretty straightforward and disabling components not too difficult. Then I made a leap of logic. You know what tends to back-feed electricity into an ignition switch? The alternator light. Started the car, turned the key off, made sure it kept running, remove the alternator bulb. DEAD. Now we're getting somewhere.

Out comes the cluster and the wiring diagrams, but I know what I'm looking for... the diode that blocks the alternator exciter from energizing the car's entire electrical system. Except, my car doesn't have one.



Ain't no diode. It's shown on the wiring diagrams, but it's not there. I grab a cluster from a 1990 (I miss my '90 SPG) to compare.



It has a diode. WTF!

The only thing I've got is 1985 was a weird year - the introduction of the 16v turbo and Saab definitely hadn't gotten some stuff figured out. A lot of stuff changed for '86... but maybe some stuff changed along the way in '85. Maybe this car is really early in production, before they realized they needed a diode?

I have no idea. So I made one.



All better. Now the car turns off when I tell it to.

Unfortunately, now I need to reinvent all the dash wiring I tore apart to find the problem.

Now I'm at work again so I can put this shit to bed tomorrow.

Although I may chicken out and work on the Viggen... I may be up for some painless, brainless, bolt-on repairs tomorrow.

[CudaMan]

I would have never figured that out.

Especially on no sleep.

[thesameguy]

Eh... sleep is overrated. I'm typically good for 50 or 60 hours before things start getting weird. At 80 I might as well be on meth. 50 is coming up pretty quick though!

[thesameguy]

STILL KICKING ASS.

I did a bunch more wiring in the car today - fixed up the stereo wiring (I did a real bad job of it in 2010) and ran an expandable harness for aux gauges, then cleaned up the dash and got to fixing my self-wrought speedometer nightmare. Plugged everything in and started the car up and let it idle. Pretty quickly got a CEL for a evap purge valve failure which, after inspection, is not a surprise. The one on the car was in bad shape. Grabbed one from the garage that I'd junkyarded anticipating just this and reset the CEL. So far, so good.

I've got a breakdown, though: I am not getting a speed signal through the ECM. Both Tech 2 and a generic OBDII scanner say 0mph even with the car idling in 3rd (like 15mph). I'm not sure what's up with that. The speedometer is working, so the signal is there. I have continuity all the way to the ECM, so either I have a jacked up signal or maybe the ECM had the speed input programmed out? I'm bummed and baffled. Not sure I have the presence of mind right now to try and get the BIN from the ECM and look at it.... but maybe I do.

There's not really any pressure since I still don't have my unobtanium nut so I can't drive it. But, I can't even put the dash back together til I have an answer on this so it's a bit of a road block. Boo.

[dodint]

STILL KICKING ASS.
Pretty quickly got a CEL for a evap purge valve failure which, after inspection, is not a surprise. The one on the car was in bad shape. Grabbed one from the garage that I'd junkyarded anticipating just this and reset the CEL. So far, so good.

MUST BE NICE.

[thesameguy]

When in a junkyard, carpe diem.

[thesameguy]

Eh... sleep is overrated. I'm typically good for 50 or 60 hours before things start getting weird. At 80 I might as well be on meth. 50 is coming up pretty quick though!

60 hours! Doing great!