[94cse]

Bought a sludged '01 9-5 Wagon (base) for $600. Found it on the local craigslist, turns out one of the dealer techs at Morries Saab in Minneapolis here was the seller. He already had the head and sump off. Bad piston.

My initial plan was to use one of the 9000 bottom ends I already have.

Interior and exterior were in very good condition:

Relatively new throttlebody according to the tech:

Pulled it out through the top:

Bad piston:

Yummy sludge:

Nice pile of parts, we'll see if I remember where everything goes:

 

[94cse]

Turns out my 9000 blocks, one from my 94 9000CSET and another from a 94 9000CDET from a junkyard, both do not have the plug in the second boss behind the starter that people say to move the oil pressure sender.

I decided to see if I could rebuild. The crank has 2 spun bearings, 2 of the rods are bad according to the machinist. All but maybe one of the pistons are shot. I'll most likely get a new set of JEs from GS, .50 over. Rods seem to be available used via car-part.com, so I'll get a couple that way. I'm going to use the crank from one of my 9000 motors, according to the EPC they are the same part number. New bearings too.

I'm waiting on the machine shop to bore out the block, they have already cleaned it, and will do a final cleaning after the rebore.

I sourced another good used head from one of the other dealer techs, was pulled from a warrantied motor. The orginal head is dinged and has a couple pieces of ring embedded into it. I'll get it checked out eventually.

The oil pickup screen was clogged. From my research it sounds like the oil jets stop squirting when oil pressure drops, the pistons overheat and seize in their bores which then spins the bearings. I'll get some photos of the crank and pistons at some point.

 

[zoli.m13]

Nice drill-down engine swap photos!
I'm thinkin on lifting out the engine+tranny after 2-3 years...

 

[photousa]

Wow, cool project and great photos. Wish I was there, I would be learning some things..Great to see this car brought back to life.

 

[jcm]

Don't give up on the crank yet. I just spoke with an old Saab tech who sent a crank in for polish years ago and was informed the metal was so hard it damaged the machine tools. Subsequent to this, he has employed emory cloth to clean up the crank with great success. I have a similar project to get into and will report my experience.

 

[Brad34]

Great write up...That is exactly what happens..once the piston cooling jet clogs the pistons are toast.

I just did an engine swap a month ago and have the bad engine sitting in the garage all stripped down. From what I was told the car ingested some water..either way I found two spun mains, two spun conn rod bearings, and two scored pistons.

IMO...for the price of a used engine it's not worth the hassle to rebuild, but maybe you just want a project.

I have two good rods and a good head if your interested.

 

[jeffroshelberdean]

Wow, what an intensive project! Interior of the car looks very nice!

Seems like there are so many good Saab project cars available in Mpls area. I think I saw a wagon on Craigslist....in Buffalo?......last week that was a good project for cheap. Just need to have space, tools, and tons of patience!

I live in Minneapolis too, so give me a shout should you ever need a hand.

 

[94cse]

Great write up...That is exactly what happens..once the piston cooling jet clogs the pistons are toast.

Thanks! Its funny, I hadn't heard of it being mentioned before. I tried blowing compressed air through one of the jets. It seemed like I couldn't get it to blow through, but I had a bunch of grit in my hand after. I'll have to soak them in mineral spirits or something.

I just did an engine swap a month ago and have the bad engine sitting in the garage all stripped down. From what I was told the car ingested some water..either way I found two spun mains, two spun conn rod bearings, and two scored pistons.

That doesn't sound like hydrolock to me. Maybe it was the final straw?

IMO...for the price of a used engine it's not worth the hassle to rebuild, but maybe you just want a project.

No doubt, cheapest for me was to use one of the 9000 B234 blocks I have. After reading about some others observations after, and the discovery I was going to have to figure something out for the oil pressure sender, I decided to tear it down to see if it was rebuildable. This way I know the engine is cleaned out of sludge and refreshed with mostly new parts. Hard to know what you'd get with a used motor. Ultimately though, I'm using it as a learning experience. I've never torn a motor down this far before. Already have some things I'd do differently. Certainly wouldn't be cost effective if I was having to pay myself.

I have two good rods and a good head if your interested.

I'll PM you on that.

 

[94cse]

Don't give up on the crank yet. I just spoke with an old Saab tech who sent a crank in for polish years ago and was informed the metal was so hard it damaged the machine tools. Subsequent to this, he has employed emory cloth to clean up the crank with great success. I have a similar project to get into and will report my experience.

There is a shop that speciallizes in cranks near me, I've held onto it and maybe I'll see what they can do with it. The machine shop that is doing my block work said it would need to be magnifluxed to check for cracks, and turned. They don't do crank work and they would have sent it out.

 

[94cse]

Nice drill-down engine swap photos!
I'm thinkin on lifting out the engine+tranny after 2-3 years...

There is a good writeup here.
http://www.serioussaab.co.uk/Procs_pages/proc_pages/p_pwrunitrem.html

I bought a leveler, made it much easier to get the right angle to pull the motor out. Something like this, but this isn't the one I have:
http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200485246_200485246

 

[jcm]

Last I checked, complete E engines were listed over $1600. Setting labor aside, bearings & rings should be under $200. Now you know what you've got. What am I missing?

 

[94cse]

I'm not sure what you are asking? What other parts I need?

 

[jcm]

Responding to Brad34's comment questioning the value of doing engine work vs just buying a replacement engine.

 

[94cse]

In my case I'm having to provide a crank, a couple rods, new pistons/rings, bearings, timing gear, all the machine shop work. Ultimately it's probably cheaper to buy a new engine in this case, and simpler. But it'd probably still be a good idea to refresh bearings, timing/balance chains, sprockets and guides, gaskets, oil pump and seals.

 

[94cse]

Wow, what an intensive project! Interior of the car looks very nice!

Seems like there are so many good Saab project cars available in Mpls area. I think I saw a wagon on Craigslist....in Buffalo?......last week that was a good project for cheap. Just need to have space, tools, and tons of patience!

I live in Minneapolis too, so give me a shout should you ever need a hand.

I'll send a pm when I get the parts together. At the least I'll need to find someone to work the hoist while I guide it back into the engine bay. My wife helped when pulling out.

 

[jeffroshelberdean]

Sounds good 94cse. You may also need to reference my '02 Linear for comparison's sake, when putting everything back in. It comes in handy when comparing bolts, and vacuum line routing.

 

[94cse]

Some more pictures:
The bad (worst) piston with crown damage:

Damage to the head:

The other pistons:

They were all cleaned in a parts washer, notice how dark the one on the left is, that one had a spun bearing. The blackening is from the heat generated by the spun bearing according to the machine shop guy. There was a bunch of sludgy oil on that part of the block and bearing caps. The bearings fell right out when taking the cap off they were so loose. I didn't save the bearings to take pictures of them.

You can see damage to the skirts from lack of oiling on the other pistons. The pistons are in order 2-3-4 from the bellhousing end of the motor. The other piston with the crown damage was the nearest to the flywheel, 1 and 2 were the blackened rods and spun bearings.

Here is the crankshaft:

Closeup of the burnt journals:

Good crank journals, these didn't show any bad wear:

Here is a shot of the head, a bit of sludge but not nearly the worst I've seen:

 

[94cse]

I'm kind of surprised the main bearings look ok.

 

[94cse]

I'm finally getting back to this project. Decided to remodel our kitchen which involved gutting down to the studs, reframing an exterior wall, rewire and plumb, and build it all back out.
The block got cleaned and bored .5 over by a machine shop and I repainted it. Brought the crank to a crank specialty shop and it is a think of beauty. Mains were fine, just a polish, rod journals got a .25 grind.
I've got a couple of shipments of parts I'm waiting on and I get to put it all back together.