Update 6/11

It's been a while since I've updated this space so time to bring you guys up to speed.

Since I last posted my repair on the fan failed, so I've removed it from the engine. Better to have no fan than a shrapnel hazard in the engine bay. Plus I would have needed a new belt to turn the fan, and who wants to spend like 5$ on a new belt.

The engine is back in the car, the transmission is obviously mated to it and everything is hooked back up and was driving for a few hours. I feel as if the car is resisting any attempts at finishing this point. After she ran and drove I've discovered I either have a bad alternator or a fairly substantial short. When the battery is reconnected it sparks (obviously a short somewhere) and the starter starts trying to turn over, which after some research is either due to an internal short in the starter solenoid or a by-product of the MSD ignition box being wired the way it is.

After the second test drive the clutch stopped fully depressing, so the car wouldn't go into gear. I determined that problem was a combination of an air-bubble in the lines and a lack of adjustment in the clutch release arm. I fixed the adjustment and re-bled the lines and it seemed to go into gear, but once again fix one problem and at least one more pops up. I crank the engine back on to test my clutch fix and I've got cylinder knock, like the timing is off by 90 degrees or more. That would make sense except for the part where I did timing literally the day before and the engine was purring at the factory recommended 6 degrees before TDC (at cranking). We also noticed that there is a crack in the top of the boot in my Bosch Blue ignition coil, which is then arcing through that crack to the positive terminal. A great thing to have in the engine bay of a carbuerated car: a fire-starter. So with the arcing and the cylinder knock I changed back to the MSD Blaster coil that is recommended with the MSD 6A ignition box. Now on cranking the engine backfires and spits scorched gas up through the top of the carburetor. So I'm 100% sure there is a timing issue of some kind, however I have no idea how it just appeared overnight.

I come back the next day to try to diagnose the timing issue and the whole garage smells like gas. Upon further inspection the gas tank is leaking from a pinhole somewhere, despite the KBS sealer I used early on it in this project. So I removed the tank, with some help to keep it from pouring gas everywhere, drained it and set about removing paint to find the pin-hole that was leaking. Of course it wasn't a single pin-hole, or even a couple pin-holes, there is probably somewhere north of 50 holes in this tank. The KBS coating on the inside is flaking off the sides in huge sheets and the gas obviously got between the coating and the tank surface, rusting holes through and peeling off the seal.

 Fill it with water to check what's leaking...

Like a freaking sieve. Upon removing all the paint from the tank I found dozens and dozens of pinholes, more than half were leaking as bad as this one.

So now I'm three steps backwards when she was so close to being done. I've got the tank from the parts car, and it appears to be free of pin-holes, but it is in very similar condition to the first tank; so full of rust. So I've got a few options.  First I can try to repair the first tank, cut it open, clean out the rust, solder or weld up the pinholes, re-seal it, and then weld it back together. Or I can send that tank off and have it repaired professionally for around $300-$400. Or I can do attempt again using a sealing kit on the parts car's tank. I may try my hand at fixing the first tank because at this point it's basically junk, if that doesn't work I'll probably just send off the second one to be professionally repaired and for it to come back with a warranty.

Hopefully while the tank is being fixed I can diagnose the short and fix it, then when the gas tank is ready I'll fix the timing and that will be it, knock-on-wood.

Engine Fan, Motor In!

So the parts car had an original Ford plastic timing case fan. Those things are rare with all 5 spokes still attached, ones that aren't cracked are basically unheard of. The one on the parts car was dirty and had a single big crack but wasn't missing any pieces so I wanted it for my motor.

Looking all dirty, these fans are goofy because they aren't symmetrical. Removing them is actually pretty easy. Fouir bolts go in the outer holes then use a bearing puller to pop the pulley underneath off the case.

There's the crack, the blade obviously warped under some heat after it cracked but there were no missing pieces of plastic.

So the process I used was fairly simple. I clamped the fan gently in the vice with the cracked blade facing up. Then I used my heat-gun on the "Low" setting to soften the plastic and make it a little more malleable. Used some 220 grit sandpaper to rough up the edges where the plastic was going back together. I then used some plastic epoxy in between the gaps, with the epoxy in place I slowly bent the fan blade back together and taped it in place. Then let the epoxy dry. I used a soldering iron to "weld" the two halves of the fan together in the back. This weld isn't meant to be structural just provide some more surface area for the second coat of epoxy to hold onto. 

Cleaned up and the crack repaired

So with the fan repaired I cleaned up the pulley and bolted it and the fan onto my motor. I do really like the look it has with the red fan, black timing case, and blue valve-covers/block/heads.

So with the engine finally finished it was ready to go back into the car. Quickly during this process I figured out my previous plan of having the trans in first and bolting up the engine in the car wasn't going to work. There's no amount of adjustment in the trans mount that will allow the clutch shaft to properly align in the clutch and flywheel so the bell housing can bolt up to the engine. So I pulled the transmission back out of the car and bolted it up to the engine.

The tricky part then is getting the CV axles back into cups on the side of the trans-axle so that it can actually drive the wheels. I was doing this entirely by myself and that was a terrible horrible pain. The hard part is making sure the spindle caps on the axles aren't knocked off in the process, if you can have a second person manning the axle and telling you how to adjust the engine on the lift. I would also recommend 4 points of lift on the engine instead of 2, a carburetor lift plate would probably be even better than that.

After several hours of struggling with the power-train I finally got everything in, trans linkage hooked up properly, trans-mount bolted up, and engine mounts in their proper holes and torqued down. At this point I realized there was a minor problem, the new fan hits my ignition box where it is currenly mounted but that's an easy fix: relocate the box. Hopefully soon I can get the coolant lines, exhaust, starter, and points hooked back up, then hopefully she'll run and drive again! I also need to bolt back up my new flywheel cover.

Prepping the Engine for Install

So after cleaning the engine, repainting the engine feet, oil pan, and water pump the engine was ready to be all sealed back up.

I cut a new gasket for the oil pan, sealed it on with some RTV gasket maker and put some new bolts in it. Bolted back on the engine feet and water pump. One of the threads in my water pump was gak'd so I needed to re-tap it. Since the threads go all the way through the holes in the water pump I could start at the front and just tapped it all the way through. All the accessories back on the engine I could put it off the stand and hang it to bolt back on the fly-wheel.

The fly-wheel off my car looked like it had been at the bottom of the ocean, there is no cover between the bell housing and the engine so the fly-wheel is just exposed to the road including all the dust, water, mud, and rocks that lie on that road. So the first thing to do was to clean up the flywheel before it went back on the car. Thankfully the clutch surface of the fly-wheel was fairly clean so it just needed to be wiped down with brake cleaner, I could hit the rest of the surfaces with a light wire-wheel since it was so rusty and the surface isn't fragile for operation.

Here are the two fly-wheels I have, the parts car's is on the left, mine on the right.The one that came with my car was lightened, probably shaving a massive 10 or so pounds off the stock format, lending credit to the theory that this motor was kind of sporty once upon a time.

So with the fly-wheel all cleaned up I bolted it back onto the motor and wiped it down with some brake cleaner, then bolted back on the clutch and clutch-plate.

Now that the flywheel and clutch were all cleaned up I'd like them to stay that way, which meant fabricating a plate to bolt onto the trans-axle case and keep the elements out of the bell-housing. So since I had two trans-axles I traced the pattern of the bottom half of the bell-housing onto a sheet of 1/16" steel, cut it out, polished down the edges and drilled holes to bolt it to the bell-housing. 

I painted it black with some engine enamel so it wouldn't rust either.

So I clamped the new plate onto the bell-housing and drilled accompanying holes about a 1/2" deep, then tapped those holes so I could simply bolt on the cover. The cover will have to go on AFTER the engine and trans-axle are attached because the cover goes between the fly-wheel and engine.

I ended up having to re-cut this plate, nearly flat to the bottom of the semi-circle I cut previously to make the fit a little easier, don't really lose any protection but it doesn't interfere with the fly-wheel's rotation.

Transmission In, Engine Cleaning

So with the new (to me) transmission cleaned, rebuilt, and resealed it was ready to go back in the car. Assuming your car's chassis is completely unmodified you hypothetically want to put the engine and transmission in already joined. However my chassis is modified: the front two chassis bars have been cut out, the top because it came like that and honestly you need to for easy removal of the motor, the bottom one because it had been dented severely when the motor was removed by the previous owner so I'll be welding in a new bar. So with those modifications I can slip my transmission and engine together seperately, the trick is to simply set the trans-axle into where it's going to live, but DON'T bolt it in. That gives it that little bit of wiggle and adjustment so that when the engine is ready to join it adjustments can be made and the bell-housing bolts put back in.

Getting the trans in the car is a tricky job, and it's better if you have two sets of hands because you need to rock the trans-axle to either direction to slip in the axles. Gotta' be extra careful to make sure the spindle caps on the axles don't come off at this step and to re-pack the axle cups with bearing grease, don't want them wearing out.

I had to put back on the C-Clip that connects the clutch release arm and slave cylinder

Sitting pretty with everything connected

However my flywheel, clutch, and engine are not ready to go back in the car so for now just the transmission will be alone in the car. The engine is the only thing on this car I hadn't torn down and either rebuilt or at least cleaned, mostly because it hadn't given me any issue. Supposedly the engine had had the cylinders sleeved by the previous owner and I wanted to cleaned the oil pan anyway since the first time I drained the oil it had water foam and slime in it, so I figured it didn't hurt to clean the pan and look in the cylinders.

I was speechless.

The motor looked goddamn brand new

After everything else on this car I expected a horror-show. 

This engine was professionally cleaned, probably vatted and cleaned.

All I did to the interior was to clean out the oil-pickup and clean some of the dirty oil out of the valleys.

I like the Ford blue so I'm gonna try to clean it up and repaint it

I bought a new oil pump ages ago and never installed it so I figured now was as good a time as any

Oil pickup cleaned and the old gasket scrapped off

While the engine is off I figured I would clean the waterpump since when the motor is in the car it's damn near impossible to get tools down there. Also gonna go ahead and clean up the motor mounts. A motor that looks that good inside deserves to look just as good on the outside!

Water-pump cover, water-pump and motor mounts.

Interior of the pan, cleaned of old oil and anything else

Exterior of the pan, I think we can agree it was a little worse for wear.

Feet cleaned of old paint

Water-pump cover all cleaned ready to be repainted

Here's the outside of the motor before cleaning

It's been sitting on this engine stand too long, dust, grime plus everything from inside the car

Motor is almost as gross as I am

Remember kids, if you're gonna gunk your motor cover the carburetor, distributor and the PCV value so you don't get water and gunk inside the block.

I've got to clean the exterior of the motor and figure out if I want to paint it or just leave the paint as is. I think I'm leaning towards repainting it this Ford blue or a very similar color since it matches the steering rack and overflow tank. We'll see though, it may be more trouble than it's worth, but at the same time I'm never gonna get a better chance... decisions decisions...

Also need to clean my flywheel and clutch assembly so they can be bolted back up as well.

Parts Car

Since it's been ages since a post I will begin by apologizing to anyone reading this blog consistently, I've just been busy with school. Some Sonett work has been done, but not as much as previously and updating this space hasn't been high on the priority list.

Now onto some actual updates: since the old trans-axle was done I needed to source another one. I thought I was going to have to go to Nines and see if I could buy a used one off of him for an arm and a leg. Then like a gift from the automotive gods a 73' Sonett showed up on Craigslist right here in Apex, literally 15 minutes from my house... for $400. The poor car was (according to the gentleman I bought it from) driven daily for years by him and then his son until he went off to college, the car was parked out in the field and left there. For 10 years. The car was dirty, it had trees growing through it but there were good parts there; so I talked him down to $300 and pulled it out of field.

as it sat in the field, literally with the forest growing up around it

it took a tractor and a winch to remove the car from the trees and get it up onto the trailer since the tires were basically nonexistent

A good sign. These guys do good work, they're actually still in business in Durham. This sticker was a large part of the reason I felt the car was taken care of.

Tires may have been gone but the soccer-balls where in good shape

Why aren't all pop-ups mechanical? These still worked after years and years of negligence.

It had truck tire inner-tubes  wrapped around the bumper, I don't know why

Front body was pretty cracked, good news: I don't need it!

Dirty dirty!

Uh-oh, carb is stuck open, doesn't bode well for the engine. I don't need it but I like the idea of rebuilding this one since I haven't really messed with mine. Can you say forged internals, bored over and a super-charger blowing through a carb?

So I dropped the parts car at the shop and over the next few weeks slowly completely tore it apart. I filled 3 twenty-five gallon tubs with the parts, not to mention the engine, trans-axle, seats, rear axle, dashboard, fiberglass, all the glass, door-frames, relays, and accessories. I posted the availability of parts for sale on the SAABSonett.org forums, which if you haven't been there are a fantastic place for information. I've sold $75 worth of parts already so the hope is I can sell at least $300 worth of parts so it will have been a free transmission. So if you need parts for your Sonett III leave a comment here and I'll let you know if I've got it! I plan to eventually have a catalog, with pictures, of everything I pulled off the car.

Interior was quite rough, field mice had made the seats and vents their homes. Tons of mud-daubers, I was glad it was winter and they were all dead.

Front end stripped of everything, suspension, engine, relays, master-cylinders, engine, transmission, accesories.

*NOTE* My cellular telephone broke during the time I was disassembling the parts car, that's why there aren't that many (or any really) pictures of the dissassembly process. My new phone doesn't take that great of pictures so the quality is gonna take a nose dive. I'm trying to get a better camera, but I'm broke, I've got a SAAB sucking out all my money!

So with the car totally stripped of everything usable (and some stuff that probably isn't) I took the frame to the junkyard. I felt bad doing it, but the body was far beyond saving. The trunk pan was worse than the one on my car and actually fell out while we were trailering it, the floorboards were basically paper mache, the rocker panels were see-through and there were holes everywhere, everywhere, and everywhere. The car could have been saved but it would have been cheaper and easier to build a frame from scratch.

Now my attention turns to finishing my car again. I wrote my list of everything I needed to do before I could put the engine and transmission back in. First and foremost was making sure the new transmission was good and clean it. 

Thats what sitting in a field will do to a transaxle. Nothing a little (a lot) of heavy duty gunk, elbow grease, and a wire brush can't take care of!

This is the roll-pin that holds the clutch release arm onto the rotating pin, it took about a can of PB'lastr and two days of pounding on it with several punches of varying size.

Ashcraft suggests that while you have the trans-axle out to check for wear on the arm. If the hole/slot where the release bearing fits have become worn you should weld (MIG preferably) and the grind down the weld to exactly fit the bearing. Worn constitutes 1/16" of space of wear, mine was OK but I did slightly bend the upper arm like a retard when I was pounding the rotating pin out, I worked it back to the correct position in the vice but I would suggest care instead of trying to fix the stupidity.

Wire wheeled and I sanded the inside with some 220 grit so it would fit a little less snuggly to ease reassembly and remove some rust, the rollpin holds it in so the fit doesn't need to be that close

Remember kids, anytime you remove something from a seal plug it with shop towels, you don't want crap getting in there.

Here's the bell-housing off ready to be cleaned, before I removed the clutch shaft.

Here's the clutch shaft removed, to do this you need to remove the bell housing from the trans-axle and then remove the two retaining clips shown in the picture

To get the bell housing off you also need to remove the axle cups, these just literally are hammered out, get a crowbar or I used a jack handle and try to get as much of an angle as you can, pound them out. They'll break loose and slide out. I cleaned off the caked on grease, grime, and for some reason green paint.

So this is the kit Mark Ashcraft will sell you for a single easy payment of $78. Don't buy this, it is a waste of money! Some of his kits are a good deal, this one isn't! It is literally a piece of 1" ID pipe X long (If you need the measurement post a comment and I'll measure it), cut carefully with a pipe-cutter and a crudely cut out cover for the spot the old free-wheel switch was.

When I went to install the sleeve it was supposed to still be able fit the retaining clip over the back, or very close thereto, however I was off by about the entire size of the pipe...

At this point I noticed that this sleeve that was on it... This transmission had already been neutered. This car was seriously well taken care of, thanks Swedish Imports!

Well OK, guess I put it back together now

Repainted the release arm and the tension spring with some black glossy engine enamel.

Here's the transaxle, while I had everything apart I examined the gears and cleaned all the nooks and crannies I could reach to remove any metal or grime that had built up. The teeth of a few gears had some rust so I very carefully scrapped the bigger bits off.

Everything cleaned, polished and reassembled. 

At this point I hadn't put on the rubber grease cap on the linkage ball joint and I hadn't put on the slave cylinder.