saablog

By Kevin Miller

09.06.2008

It has been since the beginning of May that my dad has been driving the 900. During that time I’ve had a bunch of great cars to drive for Autosavant, though for the past few weeks I’ve just been enjoying our 9-5 and the V70R.  Among the cars I drove for Autosavant was a 2008 Saab Turbo X Sport Combi, the ultimate black Saab. Truly. I’d love to own that.

Yesterday I picked up the BSOS from my dad to take it to a big Saab meet-up. The proprietor of the site trollhattansaab.net, an Australian, was in Vancouver BC, and had the idea to have a big Saab meet-up in Washington.  Since I am an avid reader of TrollhattanSaab.net to get breaking Saab news (which I’ve used on Autosavant and credited him), I was very interested to go.  When I picked up the 900 from my dad, it was amazingly clean. Nice work Dad!

Saabs in the mirror on our drive- From Saab Weekend September 2008

Because it was in Issaquah at the XXX drive in, Ani and Luisa came too, after a visit to Ani’s dad’s. So both of our Saabs were in attendance. It was a GREAT meet, with a huge turnout. We had 26 cars present, including our two. Everything from a mid-70s 99 to a 2008 9-5 sedan. Fortunately the weather was beautiful.  We chatted, went on a drive (when Ani and Luisa went home), then stayed and chatted some more. I lasted until the event ended around 7:00. By that time tons of huge 1950 and 1960s American cars were arriving, any one of them could have either (a) put my Saab in its trunk, or (b) reversed over my car like it was a speed bump. Fortunately neither of those things happened.

One thing I had noticed about the 900 was that the passenger-side headlight had a lot of condensation inside of it. I knew that it had some rock chips in it, but for whatever reason the water hadn’t dried out. Today I pulled the headlight out, dried it out as well as I could in 2 hours, and covered the half of the lens with all of the holes with some protective film left over from a project where I covered the lenses on our 9-5 after it was broken by a rock. Hopefully this will keep more water out, and also hopefully the water that is in there will be able to evaporate over time. We’ll see.

“Daddy- what happened to your car?” From Saab Weekend September 2008

Removal of the headlight isn’t too tough, but it involves removing the grille, loosening two bolts above the headlight assembly, one below it, and loosening a screw that holds the corner lamp in place next to the headlamp. When it’s all removed, the front of the car looks pretty wrecked, as you can see in the photos.

The headlight and the film- From Saab Weekend September 2008

After drying the housing with paper towels, a hairdryer, and sunlight, I cleaned the lens with glass cleaner and applied the film. Becuase of 1.6 decades of use, I couldn’t get all of the grime from the headlight, which resulted in an uneven fit of the film in some places. It’s going to be OK, it’s way better than having water in the headlight. It felt good to do a little project on my car. I had fun driving it yesterday.

All back together- as good as new! From Saab Weekend September 2008

This week on Friday I’ve got a Saab 9-3 Aero Convertible coming, followed by a Mini Cooper JCW, Nissan 350Z, BMW X5, and Kia Borrego EX. Autosavant has recently re-launched as www.autosavant.com, you should check it out, maybe even subscribe. I’ll be getting the 900 back to my dad. I’ll try to get him to write every once in a while.

I had to go to Roslyn today to see a friend.  Perfect excuse to exercise BSOSOF on a trip over Snoqualmie pass, apparently not made by Kevin.  Before leaving I filled up and learned that in the few days I have had it doing trips around town and into Seattle I have averaged about 24.4 mpg.  Already getting 10+ mpg better than the truck.

It was a quick and pleasant drive.  The car had no problems at all and could easily maintain speed in 5th gear over the pass. I was just keeping up with traffic, mostly, which was going about 75.  There may have been a few times I needed to get around someone and went a little faster.   It had been gray with a little drizzle off and on until I got to the summit where there were a few snow flakes falling.  The road however was mostly dry.

Over on the other side of the hill, the sun was out and it was a nice, if cool, day.  I took my friend for a spin to the store in Cle Elum, and I think he enjoyed the car. After lunch, I made the quick trip back.  The car was just begging for a little more throttle, and I admit there were a few times I obliged.  All the while it performed well and gave a confident stable feel.  The road is a bit rough in places, and the “feedback” left my fillings loose and kidneys jarred.
I have yet to fill up and check mpg, but I’ll be sure to include it in a future post.

Yes, BSOS is under new management.  I am Kevin’s dad and have agreed that this arrangement is a good deal for Kevin and a great deal for me.  I’m sure BSOS feels right at home here, the scent of a previous SAAB still lingering about the premises.

As I pulled away from Shoreline on my trip home I of course forgot about the missing synchro, and ground my pound both up and down on my first try.  I’m getting better.  After all, I taught Kevin what double-clutching is.

I have to agree with Kevin that it is fun to drive.  On my way home I had to stop by the Verizon store, and as I pulled into the parking lot I crossed in front of a late model Volvo wagon.  As I entered the store, the Vo;vo driver and his passenger were entering at the same time.  He said what a nice looking SAAB I had, that he and his son were admiring it as I pulled in.  Great.  Day one and already compliments.

Next day was sunny and warm, and I got to go to the store with the windows down and sun roof open.

While under new management, BSOS will be driven by an old fart, so will be known as BSOSOF.

Tomorrow the car will have its first trip over Snoqualmie pass to Roslyn.  There is potential for snow.  Wish it was going to be sunny, but I’m looking forward to the trip.

I’ve now been enjoying the BSOS 900 for 27 months, and have put about 11,000 miles on it during that time. At this point it is a fairly nice car, with pretty-good condition interior, 15-foot shiny paint (i.e it looks great from 15 feet), and it is comfortable and fun to drive.

Because this summer’s autocross season has been cancelled, I’ve got no competetions to run. I’ve been using the 900 to commute to customer’s sites to save gas instead of driving the R. It’s an enjoyable drive, and a distinctive vehicle no matter where it is parked or driven.

As my writing has picked up on autosavant.net, I’ve been approved for many manufacturers’ test vehicle fleets. In the next month I’ll be driving a Jaguar XJ Super V8, Mazda MX-5 (Miata) Power Retractable Hard Top, Suzuki SX4 Crossover Touring, and Land Rover LR3.  I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to drive each of these vehicles for a week. As my friend Dr. Casey Shillam said, we’re growing up and our dreams are coming true. But it leaves me with a bit of a problem regarding where I should park all of these cars… Ani’s 9-5, my V70R, my 900, and my press vehicle.

At  the same time, my dad has been shopping for a third car for their household, one that gets better fuel economy than his V8 Nissan Titan 4×4. He sent me a link last week to a clapped-out 1989 Honda CRX with some ridiculously high mileage on the odometer, with faded paint and a ruined interior, for $2700. Unacceptable.

That said, I’ve proposed to my dad that he drive the 900 for the next few months, and he is “really excited”. It will save him gas, and it will free up parking at my house.  All of my hard work on the 900 will not go unappreciated; and I don’t have to sell my “toy” car which has been my favorite hobby since I bought it.

I’ll try to keep you all posted on the 900’s sojourn in Kennydale, and maybe I can convince my dad to write some blog posts to keep you all up to date.

My 900 is cool! Freezin’ cold actually.

It’s April 18. It shouldn’t be snowing like this. Boo!

Last month the WWSCC’s Autocross schedule dates were all tentative, and this month the calendar shows no WWSCC autocross events.

I checked with Zane (who helped me get started in Autocross) and he said that Boeing isn’t offering their lot for events this year, so without a venue the season is off. Two other organizations are offering events, but those events are run in Bremerton and Packwood, both of which are a long way from here.

In any case, this means I’ve got no season to run. Suddenly I find myself at a crossroads. The whole reason I bought the 900 was for autocross. Now that I’ve got it, and have been driving it regularly, I can’t imagine selling it. But at the same time, I don’t need a third car, even though it’s a great commuter that gets better fuel economy on regular gas than my Volvo does on Premium.

For now, I’m making no decisions.

I did have a fun drive through downtown Seattle the other day… going down Columbia, I bottomed out the front lower frame member when coming across a cross-street going at least the speed limit. It was hilarious.

The 900 and I have returned from a successful journey to Portland. It was pretty much a fly in, fly out type of trip. The blender I was testing overflowed on its first three minute cycle, flooding the motor and wetting live parts. So I didn’t have to stay long in Portland.

I left the office just before 4:00 PM yesterday, expecting to hit traffic getting out of Portland. I didn’t. After the metered onramp to Hwy 26 at Murray Road, I didn’t stop again until reaching Shoreline. From Intertek’s door to mine took exactly 3 hours, with 2:58 of those in motion and 2 minutes at stop lights and the metered ramp.

When I first got the 900, it was my friend Dave Newell who suggested I start a blog to keep people informed about every small detail of news about my race car. Dave explicitly told me to make a post about the first time I got the car to 100 MPH. I told him not to worry, that it isn’t a 100 MPH type of car. My apoligies to Dave for misleading him.

That’s a pretty damn good picture from my partiacular camera phone, and it gives a lot of good information. You can see that it is about 5 minutes past 5:00 PM, that I’ve gone 82 miles since resetting my trip odometer at the last fill-up, and that I’m in 4th gear nearing red line (I used 4th gear to gain the speed as I was climbing a hill). My only regret is that I was not coordinated enough to have kept my foot in it for the nearly one-second delay between pressing the “capture” button on the phone and the time the shutter captured the photo.

The photo doesn’t show that I’m driving up the hill on I-5 NB, approaching the second Northbound rest-area after the Oregon/Washington boarder. The road there is three lanes wide, and offers nowhere for the WSP to hide, provided you can remember to slow down before cresting the hill. There are few places on I-5 where I’m comfortable exceeding the speed limit by that margin; I’ve just seen them too many places. In fact, in the Chehalis 60 MPH zone the Acura TL behind me did get stopped for speeding, though I was afraid it might have been me the trooper was after, as I’d crept up to about 65 MPH. Fortunately (both for me and for the TL) the trooper was about a mile north of the END CONSTRUCTION sign. 

The one caveat to the photo is that the speedo in the 900 is a bit optimistic at higher speeds. After seeing the needle approach 105 just an instant before snapping the above photo, I was convinced I’d topped the century mark. However, a later check on the Garmin showed my maximum speed for the trip as 92.9 MPH. Hmm. That’s a pretty big margin of error. Like about 10 percent.

In any case, I’ll be sending Dave an email to be sure he checks out the Saablog. The photo above is specifically for him.

The “Ten Thousand” in the post title is in reference to the fact that I’ve now driven the car 10,000 miles since buying it in January, 2006. The 900 had just 110,991 miles on it when I purchased it, and on the way to Portland on Monday evening I rolled past 120,991 and on past 121,000.

With the improvements I’ve made, the 900 just keeps getting better and better. I had a comfortable, pleasant, and FAST trip to Portland and home. When I got home, Ani remarked that the 900 seems to make the trip more quickly than the R. Part of that has to do with the fact that I usually hit traffic between Shoreline and Beaverton, which didn’t happen this week. Another part is that I use the cruise control in the R to make sure I don’t speed, but the 900’s cruise control is inoperative, so my right Puma is the only speed control. In any case, it was a quick trip!

On Saturday I finally got the oxygen sensor loose by using a big wrench of my Papa’s. The large 7/8 and 13/16 combo is inscribed with “C. Agren” and is really long. I threaded the wires of the oxygen sensor through the 7/8 hole and lowered the wrench onto the sensor, by working from beneath the car. Then I turned my body around so my legs were under the car, and I pushed on the wrench with my legs. The sensor loosened.

After removing the sensor, I set to work installing the new one. I had to splice on the original Saab connnector (since I had purchased a generic sensor), then I put on anti-seize compound and installed the sensor. The next step (which happened on Sunday) was to take the car for a test drive. The repair manual stated that it might take up to 10 minutes of driving with the vehicle warmed up to clear the Check Engine fault. It did take a full 10 minutes, but the light did go out and hasn’t re-appeared.

I ended up needing to come to Portland this afternoon to do some testing in our lab. I would have taken the Volvo, but I had to take in to the shop this morning for a failed power steering reservoir (it was leaking fluid from a seam in the reservoir) which caused loud power steering noise when turning and also caused a half-dollar size circle of fluid to appear on my garage floor. I dropped it off today and also asked my SM to look into why I’m having a difficult time engaging reverse… he said there is a Tech Note about that problem, which requires removing the transmission to re-lubricate some internal parts (which should be permanently lubricated). Hmm. I wonder how long the R will be out?

In any case, in lieu of renting a car Ani suggested that I take the 900. Having just spent a bunch of money on the car, it needs to earn some money back, and since it has just recently been repaired and gotten a new sensor, it shoudl be good to go. So I packed the 900 FULL this afternoon with my sample, test equipment, and some miscellaneous stuff needing to be returned to the office. I left home around 3:15, and made it (on a non-stop drive) in 2 hrs 55 mins to the Joy Wok restaurant near Jim and Brenda’s house. Pretty good timing from the North End. The 900 performed flawlessly, though the cruise control is again AWOL and there were some pretty brisk winds which attempted to push me off course. Hopefully I’ll be returning (swiftly) home tomorrow.

So you all know I’m a little bit fanatic about Saabs. I’m also pretty fanatic about Luisa. So when she learned to spell SAAB last weekend when she was helping me wash the car I was really excited… Watch this!

The Check Engine lamp is on pretty much full-time now.  It makes me crazy.

I checked eeuroparts.com, and the OEM sensor is $140. Then I checked saabpartspeople.com, and they wanted $240. Then I checked my local auto parts store, who had a sensor for $66. I bought that one.

So today I went out to remove the sensor. I can’t get it out. I even jacked up the car and took off the wheel so I could get under the car to get better grip on the wrench. No dice. The nice folks on saabcentral say the exhaust should be hot which will release some of the tension on the fitting. But I’m afraid I’d burn myself that way.  I’m sure I’ll figure it out somehow but it is pretty frustrating nonetheless