Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 05:54:01 GMT From: "Scott Yeager" <scottnopsamntdatacenter.com> Subject: Overheat: 92 9000 Griffin
Just ticking through town, and suddenly the temp goes up and the water spews... no noise, no nuthin'. My girlfriend is driving, so my first indication of trouble is the smell of glycol followed by spray from under the hood through my open passenger window - which, I might add, is misting out of the coolant reservoir which has suddenly cracked below it's filler neck. Being late in the day, I round up a new thermostat so I can attack this in the morning. Alas, I can find neither Chilton's nor Haynes nor Clymer repair manuals anywhere in town, but having turned wrenches on things all my life, I say to myself "well, hell, can't be much special about this one...". Famous last words. So, to my more experienced SAAB friends, I pose the following... bear in mind that this is the 2.3 Turbo with an automatic: 1. My gut tells me failed thermostat. Though my gut could be wrong, it's the first step in my chain and the damn thing needs to be replaced anyway since I'm the recent second owner and we're pushing 130K on the clock. Is it safe to assume that changing the thermostat on this car is just like doing it on any other (short, of course, of my girlfriend's 87 Porsche 944, which I'm told is a complete disaster)? 2. Short of the thermostat, what else would be a common cause of overheat failure in this model? I assume a water pump failure would be next, but I would expect some other sign of problems if the pump was on it's way out, such as noise or something obvious. Then again, perhaps in this respect a SAAB is just a car and can be fixed like one. Any pointers greatly appreciated. S