karmannghias.org Blog for the Alken D2 and Sonett 3

Today we didn’t do very much other than clean out the inside of the tank. It’s a little bit rusty in there and most likely needs some sort of coating. We sent an email off to Palo Alto about or sending unit and it looks like we’ll be shipping it out to them tomorrow or later this week for a rebuild.

Today involved electrical systems testing. We put the the battery in and tested out our rear lights. After several hours of misunderstanding and miscommunication the lights work fully and almost perfectly. The interior electircal systems work fine, all except the gas gauge. The problem with the gas gauge is that even though the tank is empy it read full, We’re trying to figure out the problem and eventually will.

I also was searching through the saabnet.com forums and found a really sweet set of rims for the Sonett, but it doesn’t look like my dad wants to get them.

Well we decided to rip the tank out, first step was the sensing gauge.

Then the Tank

Worked on cleaning the trunk of the car and then moved on to installing the right rear tail light.

Adam decided it was better to get inside the rear to do the cleaning. If we left out the spare maybe a third person or the dog could be anchored in there.

Apparently when Perry owned the car there was a run away picnic table that took out the right rear tail light. He picked up another and we went to install it today. The fiberglass was torn in the corners by the license light, we used a larger washer on the back side to secure it. This picture shows the light as it was hanging out.

I guess the mice thought this was an easy way into the car instead of opening the door. The went in through the light and build a nice nest in the fiber glass. Looks like we will put in new panels before closing things up.

We had to so some serious cleaning on the replacement housing before installing.

Once installed we took a couple of rear pictures. First though we decided to polish up the black panel. Came out pretty good.

Went through Haynes manual we picked up.

Also updated the purchased parts page.

Spring Break!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow I’m going to clean the rear trunk area other than that its a break and i was relaxing.

Well, I was going to spray some weeds but decided to stop by the Saab. I thought I’d put some gas in the tank and rinse it out so I took of the line to the fuel pump. I only put a gallon in the tank and had milk jug over the end……….nothing, rats.

I took up the back panel to see the tank and then realized that the outlet was obtained by going through the cabin. I found the nut and loosened it ever so slightly…..nothing. Well, since I had the brake power bleeder I thougt I suck the line out. It had forced one of the small rubber tips in the hose from the fuel pump…….. nothing.

I took car and brought the rear line out through the hole behind the back seat. It was plugged, how bad could it be. I used the tube from the carb cleaner and slowly forced it down in the line. When I push the button all the carb cleaner came back to me. Well, lets try the front. Karen had some small craft wire that I twisted to two strands with the drill. I got it the whole way back to the firewall. I wouldn’t make the jump from the one small rubber hose. So I thought I would use the drill like a roto rooter. That worked great, it got the cable stuck and I couldn’t pull it out.

For the next hourk plus I tooke the line apart at the firewall. There was the not in the wire. I cut it off and pulled it out. The good news was that it was clean. I had a thin aluminum wire that I started to force from the rear of the line. It took a while but I finally got it clean. Next, I spent 1/2 hour hooking the front line back up. With the power bleeder hooked up I pulled some carb cleaner the whole way through.

You are wondering why no gas is coming from the tank? Well it was plugged. I packed the area with rags below the outlet and stuck a wood dowel up the hole. I got about 10 year old gas flowing a little so I hooked up the line. I filled 2 milk jugs with new/old fuel. Check the picture later.

After cycling another gallon of fuel through I opened the line again at the bottom of the tank. I jused a small drill bit to open the bottom of the tank the rest of the way. 2 more gallons of clean fuel then I was done. What was a harmless walk by the Saab ended up being a 4 hour adventure.

Adam put the interior back together, oh, I had to take out everything I put in last night.

I worked on the clutch again. We were getting full travel but it looked like the clutch was stuck to the flywheel. Adam pressed in the clutch, the forks moved, but the engine still turned. As one point we caugth the lever and bent it up a little. I forced it back down and it seemed OK. Not sure how to get the clutch to break free. Maybe there is a trick so I posted a note on the Saab Net.

Had to catch up some blogging this moring. With travel and such it takes some time. Adam has to upload and attach some photos. We might move on to installing the water pump, thermostat and carb today.

I checked out Paul’s Sonett project. Very nice project with lots of details.
Paul Z’s 71 Sonett

What’s down the tube? Here is a picture of the new thermostat ready and armed to open a 180 degrees.

What do we have here. We were doing a experiment on the old and new thermostats. In the kitchen, mom was in the other room, we boiled some water and dropped in both thermostats. The old Motorcraft one opened slowly and not are far. The new Stant was of a different design. It looked to be more of a “full flow” design and opened quicker. I might have opened quicker due to the lower opening temp too. We will keep the old one as a spare since it did move.

Here are some of the new and old parts. Since we bought a complete engine rebuild kit we have been using seals along the way. Here we needed the water pump housing gasket and thermostat o-ring. We lightly filed the housing to help seat the gasket as the ears where the bolts go through are always a little pulled down.

Good, the water pump is in place. If you look further back we were debating about the impeller design. This Meyle pump had the curved vanes but it was not machined on the end. We had a little scuffing when putting the pump in and spinning it. We were putting some latteral pressure on the shaft and the light scuffing mostly went away. Didn’t pull the pump, we’ll see how it does with the engine running. It is unlikely that the belt will pull it that hard towards the housing. It seems that this pump should develop better flow than the first pump we bought that didn’t have the curved vanes.

It was time to check out the shifter. It was very stiff. After removing all the interior panels I use some penetrating oil to all of the shafts. It really started to work easy. The shifter appears to had them reverse light switch and neutral switch.

Parts arrived today. Looks like Chip did a nice job on the master cylinder. Really looked nice. We also purchased a water pump from Chip since he indicated the diaphrams for old ones are not available.

We also got the Saab reproduction logo caps for the rims. They look to be resin cast, painted silver and then a decal applied. Nice job but if you are looking for something with a clear plastic, reverse painted then these come up short but nice just the same.

After dinner we decide to go for installing the master cylinder. It didn’t look wet so I’m not sure if Chip tested it. Since we saved a photo of how the brass fittings were on we were able to pre-position them. Our goal was to put the master in, plumb everything up, fill it up, and then test for leaks.

Everything went as planned. There was some clicking going on when depressing the master before filling it. Maybe this was just the spring behind the boot. With the clutch master out, this job wasn’t too bad. With one person on each side of the firewall it went OK (easy does not appear in this article).
My brother dropped off his power bleeder so we pulled the fluid through the system after all plumbing was connected. I don’t like these systems much because use can only just crack the bleeder or air comes in around the thread an not from the system. After about 15 minutes all brakes were bled. We then adjusted the rears out a little manually. Nothing beats power bleading once the major air is out of the system so Adam and I pumped and drained the remaining air. Communication got better as Adam go the process down (pump it, holding, at the floor, OK do it again…..). I did make one error and overfilled the bottle, we had a little down time to clean things up.

We then spent some time cleaning all the tools (brake fluid gets on everything). Next up, the clutch system. We’ll waiting to put the clutch master in after the brake master was tough. We had to remove the outgoing line and incoming hose. The unit was snaked in over the master but it kept hitting the brake switch. We were determined not to take any of the brake system apart. The metal line to the right front caliper was taking off before the clutch cylinder was removed. Hind site would say we should have spotted the clutch slave in first. After each of us took a turn at it, it finally went into position.

We debated on how the hoses ran from the reservoir. In the end, we put the clutch hose behind the brake hose. This seemed to have the most clearance to the rack and pinion.

The line from the clutch master was tricky to get back in. We had to turn the steering wheel to the left lock and this gave Adam the chance to reach in and start the process, but Dad had to finish it. Installing the slave went easy as did the bleeding process. All hydraulic systems were repaired.

(its not the waterpump, we were just talking about it andi named the photo that, whoops)

Adam was just itching to get the new tires on. In a couple of minutes we put in the original logo caps and installed the rims. We stepped back and took a good long look. It took a while to get to where we were actuall putting things back on the car.

Just got back in town. To add to the list I stopped at Napa and bought some Permatex 97 for the water pump gaskets and ordered a new 180 degree thermostat.

So its one of those rare days where i post

Today Mom took the rims to get the rubber put on them. Man these tires look SANO! theres some cool little details to them. One of these is the fact that the tires each say inside on the inside and outside on the outside. So Heres some pics.