[Pawtang]

I bought a 2000 9-3 at the beginning of the summer, seemed to be in good condition. The previous owner ran me through all the recent maintenance he had done, seemed knowledgeable, helpful, and the car test drove fine, no CEL or anything. Said he had recently replaced the turbo with a known good one from his Saab mechanic.

After a couple of weeks of driving the thing, I start getting the occasional puff of blue smoke after some highway driving and whatnot, which he says must be the dump off of residual intercooler oil from the old turbo. I say okay, no big, I'll drive it off. It continues, and gets worse. Then I start to get the clicking. When the engine has heated up and I go to accelerate, I'll get the dreaded rolling metallic clicking, coupled with a dip in acceleration. Keep in mind, this only happens after the engine has had about 20 minutes of moderate driving to get it up to operating temperature. The smoke is a very pale blue, and dumps in these massive clouds. When I'm in a residential area I have to turn the car off, let it cool down for about 10, and then limp it home as gently as possible.

So, it was time to take action. I got a new (used) known-good turbo for free from the guy I bought it from (see? nice guy.) Ended up paying $500 for a mechanic to swap it in... regret that very much. No real difference, except now my CEL was on for 2 things instead of 0:

p1310 Ignition coil primary/secondary current sense system
p1110 charge air bypass valve - performance problems

I tried an oil additive to reduce oil burning in case it was something like piston rings, but a compression test put all my cylinders at a very even 130 psi each. (I didn't do a wet one yet, only dry, as it was my first time doing one).

Now, I would think that maybe with the clicking and all, it could be spark knocking? With the bad ignition coils? But I don't want to drop another 200 on a new IC cassette and have that fix nothing.

Any thoughts? Anyone have something similar before? I'm getting desperate here, I don't want to have to just sell this lemon, I wanna drive it!

 

[jakejm79]

130 PSI seems low for a B205 car, should be upwards of 160 assuming the gauge is accurate and test carried out properly. Smoke can come from oil having collected in the brake booster from the cam driven vacuum pump on the automatics. I'd do a leak down test and see if you have significant air escaping from the dipstick.

 

[Pawtang]

This seems like it would be consistent with the recent braking issue that has started as well - braking works fine but will get stuck about half an inch from the top, still applying the brakes a little. But could this account for such a large amount of smoke coming off and the ticking/rolling?

Should I start by checking all my lines and check valves? I don't know that much about maintenance and only started learning how to do all of this on my own, but can't afford to take it to a mechanic again as I'm a student right now, so I'm iffy about the leakdown test. Will probably ask some people in the auto club here to help me out with it.

 

[jakejm79]

If you remove the brake booster line from the intake manifold (you old the red retaining clip down and just pull on the pipe, be careful they get fragile with age). Then the plug the hole and drive it (or at least let it idle) to see if the smoke starts or not, careful if you drive it you wont have any power brakes, the car will still stop but you will need a lot of leg force.

 

[Pawtang]

If you remove the brake booster line from the intake manifold (you old the red retaining clip down and just pull on the pipe, be careful they get fragile with age). Then the plug the hole and drive it (or at least let it idle) to see if the smoke starts or not, careful if you drive it you wont have any power brakes, the car will still stop but you will need a lot of leg force.

If you don't mind, could you specify which line to remove from which nipple/valve on this https://www.esaabparts.com/viewparts.php?section=452154149

I don't wanna go pulling the wrong thing :nono;

 

[jakejm79]

Its line 39 (line 40 is the same line just for RHD), it connects to the vacuum pump (the metal piece sticking off the end of the head by the battery), the brake booster (black circular thing behind the brake master cylinder) and the intake manifold (the large chunk of aluminum between the throttle body and the head).

You want to pull the line out of the intake manifold and then plug the hole in the manifold (it will be under vacuum so plug it with something that wont get sucked in).

 

[Pawtang]

I didn't run it yet, but I took a look at the places those hoses connect, and here's what I found:

Connection to the vacuum pump: hose drips oil when I remove it.

Connection to the manifold: the connection (where you said there'd be a clip) had no clip, but instead the oil line simple plugs into a hole on the manifold, with barely any holding force. I could pull it out as if it wasn't gripping at all. That doesn't seem good. It also looks like there's an old oily gunky gasket surrounding the hole that no longer serves its intended purpose... no good.

Connection to the brake booster - this one was very solidly connected and hard to get to, so I wasn't able to pull it off for fear of messing something up.

I intend to test out the check valve involved in this little 3-way and see how its doing. But my concern is, should there be oil in the line to the vaccuum pump? Would this indicate oil flowing into the BB?

 

[jakejm79]

The 2000 and early 2001 models had just a single check valve, between the T and the manifold, the initial thinking was that the vacuum pump always being under vacuum didn't need a check valve, what happens is the seals in the pump start to leak (not a huge deal in itself) but then the manifold vacuum is sometimes greater than the pump, meaning it can draw air and oil up from the pump, it collects in the brake booster and can then be sucked into the intake manifold and burned off.

The later 2001 and 2002 models had a 2nd check valve fitted between the pump and T, this meant even with great manifold pressure there is no way for anything to be drawn away from the pump (well unless that check valve fails).

There should be a red circular clip (like the one on the pump) at the manifold, sounds like that is missing.

If you have oil at the pump then there is a strong possibility its leaking enough that its making its way to the manifold and getting burned off.

The connection at the BB just pushes into the rubber grommet, it should just pull out (be gentle the lines are a little fragile with age), you can then try to swab in the booster for signs of oil.

 

[Pawtang]

Oh wow this is finally starting to add up. I'm gonna start by getting that grommet insert for the line... Should I just go ahead and buy a second check valve and splice it into the line between those two points? (Assuming I check around and this ends up being the problem.) And would I be able to just burn off the rest of the oil built up in the brake booster, or would I need to open and clean it, or just replace it all together? New ones are like 500 but I could probably snag one off a parts car for like 50-100 or I'm lucky...

 

[jakejm79]

If there is oil in the BB over time it will damage the diaphragm and lead to brake issues. If you source one from a parts car I suggest looking for one from a manual, they didn't have the vacuum pump so will never be full of oil. You might be able to get all the oil out, depends on how much is in there (if that is the issue).

I'd start by pulling the hose from the manifold, plugging the hole and seeing if the smoking stops to make sure this is the cause of the smoke.