Ranting and Raving

Spent the day replacing my rear brake pads and patching up some rust spots on the Saab - I'll take a bondo-bubble over a rust bubble any day.

I'm calling the bodywork done, basically - just a final bit of sealing. I'm not totally happy with it, but its as good as its getting on the budget I have to give it. I paid Gregg of Gregg's autobody to do $400.00 worth of metalwork. Told him what my priorities were, and he met them. I was very impressed with his work. After he was done, I threw a pound or two of Bondo on a dent, ground it down, and primed and painted. It doesn't look great, but its a damn sight better than before. It looks like something bad happened to it, ans someone did what they could to fix it. Which is true. Making in look new would cost twice what the car's worth. I'm really happy to be able to write that off and move on
to more normal tasks, like the check list I posted way back when.

I replaced the radio with a vr3 VRCD500SDU gathered from Targe for 80 bucks. It's a fun little unit with Tuner, CD player, and the ability to mount a USB drive or SD card and play MP3s/WMAs off of it. It can also play them off a CD. So here's a quick review of it

Sound Quality - Quite good, really. It drives the four built-in speakers quite nicely.

User interface - too damn fussy There are lots of buttons with lots of shift states and context dependencies. But simple user interfaces are hard to come by. I've learned what I need to know of it.

USB/SD playback - the feature I bought it for. The file handler is a brute - it does recursive navigation of each folder, playing the contents of that folder in the order it was written to the flash memory. Or it can randomize. You can skip to the next song, or you can skip the next 10 songs, but you cannot just skip from one directory to the next. It cannot cope with DRM, and if the filesystem on the device is to badly fragmented, it acts . . . strange. All that said, I'm thrilled to be able to load stuff on my USB drive and listen to it in my car. The next toy I want is one of those USB turntables that debg clued me into so that I can start listening to my vinyl in the car.

Another quirk - the "Automatic Antenna" line on the stereo just goes hot whenever the stereo is on. I wish it would only go hot when the Tuner is in use - no need to have the antenna up if I'm not listening to the radio (dang antenna needs work - or replaced - anyway.)

Finally, refitted my old Thule Gutter Feet to fit the hank nuts the Saab harbors for the factory rack. It can now carry canoes.

Next up, I think I might actually do some work in the - gasp! - engine compartment. It needs a new serpentine belt, the present one is a bit worn.

Late last week, Morgan was perusing the Bulletin Board at work, one of which was a Saab 9000. She thought of me, shivering in my snowpants on my 24 mile commute on the 0 degree days we had last week in my heaterless Cavalier wagon with the stink that makes her sick. She alerted me to it, and I test drove it.

Long story short, I am now the owner of a 1600 dollar 1995 Saab 9000. It is not a 1000 dollar Saab. It is not a 2000 dollar Saab. It is a 1600 dollar Saab, and as such it comes with a worklist:

1) Radio does not work. I actually fixed that this evening by reseating its face plate and giving it its anti-theft code. It still has the annoying issue of the backlight for the display being out - that's a project for another time, but right now I have tunes!

2) Dashboard Lighting flickers. This is supremely annoying at night, most likely culprit is contact corrosion on the light control switch. I will aim to get to it on Sunday. This took some reseating of the Rheostat and Headlight Switch.  Still flickers occasionally, but better than before.  The rheostat either needs component cleaner or else to be bypassed, since I always like Dash-lights at full intensity.

3) Climate control has trouble coming on when the engine is cold. I suspect a bad relay here. But the Climate Control DOES come on and the heat is strong.

4) Needs driver's side sun visor. Previous owner removed it because it wouldn't stay up, and her mother lost it for her. This will come from a pick-n-pull.  Driver's side sub visor arrived.  Cleaned it up and installed it.  I think it may have come from a different model year, but the differences are minor.  Point is, I can now guard my eyes against a low sun.

5) Saab Logos missing from steering wheel and shifter. I guess someone really wanted a memento.

6) Saabs apparently like Stop Leak in their coolant. I will get some.

7) AC does not work. I will have the system pressure checked, but my suspicion is that the problem is to wide an air-gap on the compressor clutch.

On the bright side, the clutch, starter, and heater core are all fresh, and the ride is solid and assured. Mobil 1 has been the oil used, and I will stick to it. I need a shop manual, and I think I will need to order it online.

When all is said and done, I think the car is real nice, and worth the work it wants. The improvements over the Chevy, most notably in Morgan's ability to be in it, are significant. It has cruise control, which is a nice accomodation for Morgan's knee on long journeys. So, pretty much, its everything I was looking for in Schtinky's successor. It is yet unnamed.

For about a year now, I had a badly screaming belt on my Saturn SW1. Sparing the play by play of the events that moved this onto the front burner, I decided that this was the weekend and today was the day that would change. The problem was not the belt (although it was frayed) but was, in fact, the belt tensioner - basically a spring-loaded idler pulley that exerts pressure on the belt to maintain belt tension. The pivot of the the tensioning arm has a bushing which had become shmushed, rendering the tensioner incapable of exerting sufficient presure on the belt to keep it from slipping.

So why did I wait a year to do it? Because the first procedure I found for doing entailed supporting the engine with a block of wood and removing the engine mount. If one was lucky, this procedure chimed, one could maybe avoid having to pull the power steering pump. So my next door neighbor, a mechanic who takes the occasional job said that If I got the parts, she'd do the work for 100 bucks. Sounded good. We agreed on the Friday after Thanksgiving (also morgan1's and my anniversary). The day rolled round, no word. Turns out, she had the flu, and although she said she'd get to it the next day, she did not look like she would be doing anything but sipping hot beverages and taking bedrest anytime soon.

( So I did it myself, details within. )

Then came the moment of truth. I turned the engine on and loaded the electrical system and fired up the AC, not a peep, and no parts went flying. I put the splashguards back in, remounted the tire and drove morgan1 and me up to Baker's Square for a celebratory dinner.