UKSaabs

The Viggen has had an easy life so far this year, having not been used much at all. I lifted the bonnet last week to remind myself what it looks like and have a general poke round. Noticed that one of the replacement gas struts from PFS was already leaking:

Viggen190 by James Vey, on Flickr

Viggen191 by James Vey, on Flickr

I sent Alex at PFS a message (along with a couple of supporting photos), and he quickly dispatched me a replacement pair. Top customer service - the way it should be done. None of this "I need you to send the old one back" bo!!ocks that I've had from other SAAB parts places. I like a straightforward approach where common-sense prevails!

I needed just the one, but he sent a pair, meaning I can squirrel one away. Now fitted, happy days!

Viggen192 by James Vey, on Flickr

I've done barely any miles in the Viggen recently and I don't remember ever needing to use the wipers, so it didn't come as a surprise to notice that the wipers had split:

Viggen193 by James Vey, on Flickr

I had some wipers stashed away which Graeme had talked me into buying when I collected the refreshed steering wheel from him. Time to dig them out and fit:

Viggen194 by James Vey, on Flickr

On a different note, I have noticed a slight drop of coolant under the car once parked up after a run, so I will investigate that in due course:

Viggen195 by James Vey, on Flickr

Took the Viggen for the MoT at the weekend:

Viggen198 by James Vey, on Flickr

As you can see, I've covered a measly 1100 miles in the last year.

I mentioned in my previous update that I had noticed a slight coolant weep. Grabbed the opportunity to have a look under the car and although I could see evidence of leakage, I couldn't pinpoint the source. I will be passing it over to the guys at Malcolm Miles soon, as they had the engine apart in the last year.

Viggen196 by James Vey, on Flickr

And on the way home, couldn't resist stopping for this shot:

Viggen197 by James Vey, on Flickr

The coolant leak has been traced to where the hose meets the nearside of the radiator. A new jubilee clip has sorted that:

Viggen200 by James Vey, on Flickr

The nearside driveshaft boot developed a split, so the guys at Malcolm Miles swapped that for a new (genuine SAAB) item:

Viggen199 by James Vey, on Flickr

Viggen201 by James Vey, on Flickr

Mileage at time of fitting 86,015 - still a baby!

Only just warming up at that mileage.

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2007 Derv Dame Vector Sport

Nice work, love that interior!

One wee thing, may or may not be relevant. When I see that MOT advisory (and the previous mention of it in the thread) re upper windscreen damage I can't help think of my old 'vert, rust had developed underneath the rubber trim and had gotten to bad it ended up pushing out and cracking the window. From what I've read it's not unheard off.
On my current one I've pulled back the trim and sprayed some Bilt Hamber in there to try and prevent it.

_________________
'05 9-5 Aero
'01 9-3 Aero 'vert
'13 Volvo XC70
Gone; 9000 CSE, 2x 9-3 2.0t, 9-3 Aero HOT, 9-3 TiD

Lugy, thanks for your comment about the possible A-pillar rust. To be honest the thought hadn't crossed my mind. I do have a donor OG 9-3 at my yard. I need to inspect that screen closely and if it's not cracked I will put it aside for the Viggen. The bottom crack looks like it's started inboard and propagated to the edge in two directions. The upper crack, I don't know. There is a serious lack of torsional rigidity in the OG 9-3 convertibles, so I suspect the screen is doing more work than in a car with a stiffer chassis, and this won't be helping!. Some closer pics:

Viggen202 by James Vey, on Flickr

Viggen204 by James Vey, on Flickr

Viggen203 by James Vey, on Flickr

A couple of weeks back I'd noticed on a particularly spirited squirt of acceleration that it felt like there was a slight hesitation / misfire. No CEL (check engine light) and no misfires were showing up on openSID, but I made a mental note to see if it happened again. A few days later I then got a CEL, which subsequently went away the next time I started the car. Interrogating openSID, I could see there was one error code stored, code 4882. Converted to hexadecimal, this is 1312, which is a misfire on 1 and 2.

Viggen212 by James Vey, on Flickr

Removing the DI pack, I could see that is was an earlier part number of 55562588, and was also starting to get the very common diagonal crack between coils 3 and 4. Luckily I had at least three DI packs squirelled away in my shed, so I cherry-picked the best looking one. No crack and the later part number of 55559955:

Viggen213 by James Vey, on Flickr

Viggen214 by James Vey, on Flickr

Viggen215 by James Vey, on Flickr

I pulled fuse 17 to try and clear the stored fault code (this trick usually clears an EML) but to no avail. I then disconnected the battery for an hour, but still the code remained. Fellow SAABer Matt popped round with his generic code reader, and he was able to clear the code with that. Thanks Matt! It's driving fine, although I will still check the spark plugs when I can. The only reason I didn't at the time was because I was impatient and the DI pack was hot enough!

In other news, the driver seat buckle was sometimes requiring a bit of an effort to release the belt tongue. Luckily I have a 9-3 breaker at the yard, so I salvaged one from there.

With the driver seat out, I took the opportunity to give it a decent wipe down:

Viggen205 by James Vey, on Flickr

Any a couple of coatings of Gliptone Leather conditioner, given plenty of time to soak in. This is obviously not how I left it:

Viggen207 by James Vey, on Flickr

Me being me, I don't like to refit stuff that is covered in grime, so took the opportunity to wipe the rails and frame (where appropriate):

Viggen208 by James Vey, on Flickr

Viggen209 by James Vey, on Flickr

At this point I realised that the buckles are not handed, so I probabaly should have grabbed the passenger one from the donor car, rather than the driver, seeing as it would have seen much less traffic.

Note the lack of any sort of anti-rotation peg on the stalk, despite there being two holes on the seat frame for exactly this reason. Strange, I wonder if it's something to do with 3-doors and convertibles having tippy seats.

Viggen211 by James Vey, on Flickr

When fitting, it is obvious from the shape of the seat squab foam in which exact orientation the stalk should be:

Viggen210 by James Vey, on Flickr

`I also pulled off the drivers buckle today to fit to my new car, have to take off the passengers now, thanks
as you say less wear.

_________________
Pete

Punctuation, Spelling and Grammar will be used sparingly. Due to rising costs of inflation.

There was something odd going on with the DIC part numbers. 55559955 preceded 55562588 and then succeeded it. I had a 55562588, if you peel off the sticky label you will find 55559955 underneath.

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Everything will be OK in the end. If it's not OK, it's not the end...

I'd been toying with the idea of getting a private plate on the Viggen for a while and have finally stopped procrastinating. I bought the rights to the plate online on the Friday, the paperwork came through the following Thursday, meaning the next day I was able to assign it to the car, notify the insurers (£35 admin charge, what the heck, and she didn't even bother use capital letters when writing the registration on the paperwork!) and get some plates made up.

I was always going to go for something car-specific rather than me-specific, so I have gone for something which is a nod to the legends that engineered the car - Tom Walkinshaw Racing:

Viggen218 by James Vey, on Flickr

I knew the old rear plate was generally tired, but it was only when I looked closely that I realised just how much so:

Viggen219 by James Vey, on Flickr

This shot doesn't show it particularly well but you can actually see a horizontal line where the bottom half of the plate has been sun-faded:

Viggen222 by James Vey, on Flickr

Viggen220 by James Vey, on Flickr

Me being me, I couldn't bring myself to stick the new plate over that mess, so used some brilliant "Stick Stuff Remover" - around £5 from Halfords:

Viggen221 by James Vey, on Flickr

In an ideal world I would have removed those two pieces of tape (which are covering mounting holes) and put something nice over, but I couldn't find any of the circular patches I've got laying around, so just left it as is:

Viggen223 by James Vey, on Flickr

I took a fair bit of time lining up and marking the position. I HATE wonky plates! I actually realised the old one was about 5mm off centre:

Viggen224 by James Vey, on Flickr

Pleased with the result:

Viggen225 by James Vey, on Flickr

The front one actually took longer to do because of the having fewer hard-points to which I could align it, but again, I think it looks great:

Viggen226 by James Vey, on Flickr

Whilst doing the rear plate, I noticed that the cable "hose" or "trunking" had detached, so I disconnected one end of the boot strut to give better access, gave the whole area a wipe down and reassembled correctly:

Viggen216 by James Vey, on Flickr

Viggen217 by James Vey, on Flickr