April 26, 2013

finishing up – air dam, visors, EGR removal

Wow .. really finishing up? Yes! It is very close. The next few things I have to do are:

– install heater controls (I’m building a control from two broken units)
– install reverse lock out
– paint and install grille
– install wood for switch controls
– install all the dash bits.

On the air dam I used rubber well nuts for all the fittings except for the lower bracket. I also used well nuts to attach the head light bezels. Rubber well nuts are suggested by the shop manual. On the air dam it really makes sense, because you want it to be shock mounted rather than rigidly. The sun visors were cleaned and the arms/mounts were painted. For the EGR removal I had to replace the compression fittings with a cap. The threads are fairly standard for compression fittings. I used high temp RTV on the threads and it seems to be holding. If you want to do this, I highly recommend you use AEROKROIL on the outer thread only. You want to remove the compression fitting for the tubes, but do not remove the fitting to the manifold. It most cases those fittings will have threads that are fused to the manifold. The size of the caps are 5/16″. My friend Erik in Sverige sent me very early 1970s mud flaps. I like them quite a bit.

Here is what went on today..

April 24, 2013

Bye bye EGR proportional

There were several different ’emissions control’ systems implemented on the SAAB 99 engine starting in 1975. My car has one of the more reasonable designs which is called EGR proportional. Rather than using an air pump which can rob power, it uses a more passive ‘air pulse’ which recirculates exhaust back into the intake system.

I developed an exhaust leak and discovered that one of the pipes had cracked. I took it to Troll Motors and Nate made me feel confident that I should just remove it and cap off the fittings.

I’ll likely not remove all of the EGR proportional, but this piece has to go.