Oil Change… and almost a new stereo
Yesterday I went to see a guy named Dan. He’s currently got 3 classic 900s at his house (an ‘85, ‘86 and a ‘90). All are turbo, 3-doors. The ‘85 is green, the other two are faded red, with the ‘86 undergoing some restoration to be ready for sale. Dan had read my post on Saab Central about my melancholy, and he was willing to give me the stereo from the ‘86 in order to help me fal in love with my 900. we pulled the stereo from my 900 and his ‘86, and discovered that their cage/connectors differ. We pulled the cages out and found that the in-dash wire bundles and connectors differ too. So that was a no-go.
However, he gave me some good advice on fixing my headliner by myeslf. It was fun to hear a story or two about the Alcan rally he’s doing in February. Dan only lives 10 minutes from my house, in a quiet neighborhood in Lake Forest Park, I may go over again when he is re-doing the headliner in his ‘86. He has inspired me to attempt repairing the headliner in my car.
Afeter getting home, I decided to look on ebay for a replacement stereo for my car, even though Dan recommended a new, modern unit. So I looked on eBay and found a stereo from a ‘92 9000, with the auxiliary CD player/equalizer unit. The photos show the basic head unit/cage to be identical to the one in my car. I’ve currently got a bid in on it.
Today I finally got around to changing the oil. 1992 was the first year that Saab recommended 5000 mile oil change intervals rather than shorter mileage intervals. I intended to change every 3000 miles (I did my original at 111000 miles, and the next at 114,000). But somehow I forgot and managed to to 4700 miles on my full synthetic oil that Scanwest put in last January.
Other than having a hard time getting the drain plug out (Scanwest tightened it too tight I’m afraid), all went well. I had a free oil filter from Scanwest/Northwest Saab Owners Club raffle, and free Pennzoil Platinum synthetic 10w30 motor oil. it took about an hour to perform the oil change, taking my time. the bottom of the motor is pretty oily (parking overnight leaves about a nickel-size reminder of my visit in oil on the driveway). I’m afraid that the super-micro synthetic will leak even a bit more.
So I don’t intend to let the next oil change go 4.7k, but over those miles the car had lost less than a quart of oil through burning/leaking. Not too bad for a 15 year old car.
