Ed Townend

Time to replace the front arches on Helga – once I started poking at the bubbles it was clear they needed replacing. Luckily Saabits offer weld-in replacement sections, and I’ve got a friend with a welder.

It’s not technically possible to get the front arches as repair panels – the trick is to buy rear ones but swap left to right. Still, I’m not sure why the curve of the new arch was quite a bit smaller radius than the arch we cut off because I’d read they’re supposed to be the same.

While my mate Rich was doing the welding I fitted a new water pump, thermostat, ECU temp sender and fan temp switch along with fresh red antifreeze. I’d already done the gauge temp sender and the radiator looks pretty new so that’s all of the cooling system overhauled. The old pump was binding at certain points and it was weeping slightly because the mounting face hadn’t been cleaned up properly last time. Hoping the temp sender helps the wonky running and the others are just for luck but it should all go towards better reliability once she’s back on the road.

Every year we go to the Oulton Park Gold Cup, and this year was Helga’s turn. Had a very eventful journey, blew off a boost hose early on and that started a cycle of constant stops to refit it. I think it must have blown off a dozen times. Got so fed up that I disconnected the APC valve to drop to base boost but the pipework is a bit stretched and doesn’t have swaged ends, and disturbing it once seemed to start the cycle.

Grabbed a couple of Mikalor clamps from the track shop to try to hold the pipes together a bit better which was working great on the way home until I went for a full bore overtake of a corsa, and as I drew level, -pssst!-. This time it was at the other end of the offending pipe. Much easier to put back though because it wasn’t underneath the washer bottle. To effect a proper fix I just need to find a longer silicone jointer that is stepped because one pipe is ~56mm and the other is 51mm, plus there’s very little overlap of jointer into pipe and the pipe isn’t swaged.

As I stopped at the next junction I came to after putting the pipe back, a cloud of white smoke plumed from under the bonnet. The distributer chose that moment to blow its seal and wee oil onto the turbo heat shield. I’ve got a couple of other spare distributers but from later cars, so I’ll have to work out if they’re compatible.

Recently I collected a replacement for Babs the Saab 900, found on the UK Saabs forum. Pretty much everything was exactly as described, though we found a couple of holes in the boot floor that’ll get repaired. Babs went in the exact same place so it seems a common problem when water collects through the antenna hole. On the trip home it was blowing a bit of oily smoke on the overrun. Luckily I’ve got the spare TE-05 turbo from Babs that I’d just rebuilt.

Other than that she drives really great and feels very tight – plainly she’s been well looked after. God she’s quick when the boost finally comes on! I’ve not yet fully decided which direction to go with her, and probably never will! One thing for sure is that I intend to keep her for a long time, so I’m going to first focus on sorting all of the bits of corrosion to make sure it lasts, and also make her look as presentable as I can while adding my own stamp.