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auto starter disable

895 views 10 replies 3 participants last post by  prionailurus 
#1 ·
My car won't start, I ran it w/o coolant a little too long, it overheated, and I think the headgasket is toast, I've a fizzing water sound from the right side of the engine, sounds like it's coming from the headgasket area. Compression side showed 10 on cyl1, going down to 6.5 on cyl4.

Now the problem, where will have parts on a saturday or sunday (this is my daily driver), Newcastle, UK? There's a europarts place and the main dealer, but I need HG, intake gasket, sealant for both, and shorter bolts for the intake gasket, as I'll not be putting the heater plate back in.

Now the bigger problem, need to get my car up the drive into the garage to do the job, and the drive is not a hill to be pushing a car up (1 in 4). It's an automatic, so I could do with knowing where the starter disable switch that prevents the car being started in gear, anyone? I need to temporarily bypass this to get the car in the garage. Of course I'll put it back when I'm done (as I think that system is a good idea).

thanks people.
 
#3 ·
bad to worse

got the headgasket done, it wasn't too bad a job, head looked fine, the gasket was blown between cylindars 1&2, 2&3, 3&4, various cylindar-water places and was starting to blow to the outside too.

However, now the car runs lumpy, well it doesn't really run, won't start w/o about half throttle, it won't idle, will only sit revved above about 1200rpm, we thought it was the timing, took it apart, it's fine. Thought it was lack of adaptation (just changed ECU & turbo), took it for the trionic run, base boost is about 6psi, which is close enough for this. But it was running like h£ll and there was a simple lacking of power, as in felt like 1.0L N/A sitting under the hood. Put back in the garage, the oil's nackared again, got emulsification, mars bars (etc), but this time there's no fumes in the coolant expansion tank. I've done a compression test: 8, 9, 9, 10 bar, so I'd say the head, block, and head gasket are all fine, I'm not losing a noticable amount of coolant or oil. The other thing is, the turbo-downpipe joint has fumes coming out, not sure what it is, but I think something's burning that shouldn't be. The other symptom I've got is that the engine is getting up to temp (dash needle) very (too) fast, the fan becomes necessary way sooner than it used to.
:cry: :cry:
My thoughts are a bearing gone in the 'new to me but 2nd hand' turbo, hot air getting into the water making it's temperature soar. Would like to see an exploded diagram of a turbo to see what could happen if one of the journal bearings dies.

Opinions welcome
 
#4 ·
prionailurus said:
got the headgasket done, it wasn't too bad a job, head looked fine, the gasket was blown between cylindars 1&2, 2&3, 3&4, various cylindar-water places and was starting to blow to the outside too.
Did you check the head for flatness? If it had gone between every cylinder, that sounds to me like it was warped. Everything else (apart from the turbo blowing) sounds like my car did with a cracked head.

David.
 
#5 ·
ok, so we've swapped the turbo back to the T25, now it won't run or start at all, it takes full throttle to eventually try and start at about 600rpm, then stalls straight away. Called the dealer, they've suggested a porous head. I'm wondering what the compression test should be, haynes says anything less than 10 isn't healthy, I've got 8, 9, 9, 10. I'm going to get another HG and take off the head tonight, got a spare head that's 1 year younger, will probably just sling that on after a quick clean. How can one tell if the head is porous?
 
#7 ·
Fuel pressure is fine, we loosened the bolt on the supply to the fuel rail by about half a turn, tried to start and it was spraying like a waterfall all over the place. Also, the plugs look like they've been running rich.I'm about to have my spare head skimmed and a valve regrind. I'm hoping that will be the end of it.
I'm open to other suggestions, I've probably missed describing something I've tried already but someone may well think of something I've not tried yet.
 
#8 ·
Ok, so the head is back and it looks good, it wants to look good for £228! Took the other head back off, the gasket came off in one piece, and the red sealant hadn't dried, still hasn't, even though the engine had been up to heat. Other thing is, the head bolts were quite easy to take out. My dad put them in to spec torque and he's twice as strong as me, he was in a milt sweat by the time 10 were done, yet I got them out with slightly less power than the road wheel bolts (just for comparison). We're wondering if the head and it's gasket bottomed out on the sealant, and we tightened the bolts against this 'cushion' of sealant. This would probably result in getting blow-by from cylindar to cylindar.

should we put on much less or no sealant I wonder?
 
#10 ·
Never use sealer on a head gasket; any head gasket, ever.
You may find it hard to believe, but the head moves constantly on the block (that's why you never have to scrape the gasket off, they usually just drop out). Since they're different materials, which expand at different rates, heated to different temperatures, movement is inevitable. If you try to glue (seal) them together, the glue, and the gasket, will fail.
I don't know if that's the only problem you have, but it's one of them.
 
#11 ·
Thanks for that DJ & Jim, I kinda wish I'd asked if sealant was necessary before I'd done the 1st one, I may have spent £228 that I needn't have, oh well, c'est la vie.

Now my only problem remaining before the initial start is that the car is a 96 and the head is a 97, different threads on the temp sensor, IIRC the 97 sensor has quite an aggressively tapered thread on it, mine has a straight thread on and just 'falls' in the hole.

I don't want this to sound like an advert that should be in the classifieds, but does anyone have a spare 97 temp sensor (the one for the side of the head) that works or doesn't work? (I can drill the sensor and just use the thread if necessary).
 
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