So work continues on the Saab while the MG is still waiting to move into its unit (hopefully tomorrow
)
I had a mini shopping spree on ebay just to get those little things that annoyed me while driving about, and when I say little things, I mean like a tiny light bulb to go in the backlight for the headlight level switch... a bit OCD but I like having a full compliment of dash lights, even if the bulb is the wrong colour ¬¬
On a slightly more reasonable note, the gearknob was appalling, it had been a bit shabby since I bought the car and was falling apart
Removal involved pulling off the knob (heh) then hacksawing the inner plastic bit off the splined shaft of the gear lever, took a bit of effort but it came off while making a mess of my lovely clean interior in the process..
Then the new one was a push fit on, the pull up for reverse bit clipped into the underside of the knob
Job done! Or so I thought.
On driving to the supermarket a bit later, I found that it was possible to swing the lever right over to reverse without having to lift. Not ideal.
A quick lift of the gaiter showed what I'd managed to do
That black tab on the shifter is in the wrong place. So top tip if you happen to find yourself changing a gearknob on one of these, lift the gaiter while you are doing the job to make sure its all going to work properly!!
I now need to work out a way of sorting this without destroying my new gearknob in the process
On a happier note, I went to a little rolling road day event over the weekend
Was certainly an interesting mix of machinery
The remap that is currently on the Saab is advertised as giving 250hp and 272lbft but I know theres a couple of things not quite right about the engine so I wasn't expecting to hit those figures. I set my sights low with any improvement over the standard figures being a win in my book (205hp and 221lbft)
I was sat in the car for the runs but by all accounts the engine was entirely drowned out by the dyno noise apart from when it hit the rev limiter and kicked out a bit of smoke which may have surprised a few haha
The headline figures were..... 220hp and 307lbft !!!
Obviously the usual caveats of dyno figures apply and they should be taken with a pinch of salt but it shows that the car is in the right ballpark for where I'd like it to be. And I was pretty astounded by the torque figure
The key now is to make the engine a bit smoother. I'd recently done the 'bypass control valve' bypass so that the recirculating valve is working directly off manifold pressure, in the hope of gaining some throttle response but its still not quite right. Closer inspection of the hoses around the inlet pipe also show that the take off for the brake servo is incredibly loose in the pipe so theres no way its sealing properly. Sorting that is on the list. (Just when I thought I'd finished my 'things to do on the Saab' list...)
In other news, I thought I'd give these a try to see if the hype is justified
They seem to get rave reviews everywhere and on first impressions, the light output is very nice and clear white. The headlight aim is still bad though, way too high even on the lowest adjustment setting so another thing for the list..
Aaaaand to round things off
When I'm not down working directly on the car, I'm up in my flat sorting the wheels that I've bought for it. The wheel with a dent in it shall be going to a specialist to be sorted (once I find a reputable one) but I've made a start on the round ones.
To recap, the wheels did have nice polished lips once, but a sandblaster that the previous owner used had painted over the lips in primer..
But thankfully unlike the MG wheels I've done previously, the primer was a thin layer and easy to sand off. And unlike the Jag wheels I did previously, theres no rim corrosion. This meant that I was able to go in pretty much straight away with a fairly fine paper.
Since that photo was taken I've now had the first wheel's lip done with 800 grit dry paper. The next steps will be a wet 1200 grit sand then rubbing compound before metal polish, all done by hand. But before all that, I'll go over the centre in 800 grit ready for primer once the lip is finished.
I've also chosen a colour for the centres but I think I'll keep that under my hat until I get a coat on one of the wheels, shouldn't be too long now
)
