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Hi Fellow SAAB Enthusiasts,
I suspect I have a headgasket problem but I am not certain of the extent of the issue and can use some feedback.
I have a 97 9000 Aero with 90k mi; I am the second owner. The 90K mile service was just done and everything has been great on the car--everything, until this past Friday evening.
As I was coming home in city driving, stopped at a light the engine started to idle roughly and the rough idle got worse when the AC cycled on/off. I had to practically slip the clutch to get going from a stop (may also speak more my need for a new clutch, which is being planned). Anyway, there were no warning lights at all--no CEL, no low oil pressure, all gauges were normal. Lucky for me when I arrived home the check radiator light came on. I got out of the car and it was idling like a Harley-Davidson, no where near the smooth idle it usually had done prior to this day. There was no white smoke out of the pipe, in fact, the exhaust was pretty clear, colorless, no hot sweet smell.
Okay, I shut off the car lifted the hood and the coolant res was dry and I could hear it hissing like pressure wanting to escape. The passenger side fender liner inside was all wet (nothing on the driveway, strangely enough) and the coolant looked as if it come through the cap--the top of the res was wet. Inside the coolant res was a gray residue. It looked as if it could be condensed combustion gases but hard ot say for sure. I later started it again and it began to idle smoothly (still w/ check coolant light on) so I shut it off quickly. I pulled the DI and it looked fine; a little bit of oil from the valve cover gasket was on it and I had planned on replacing the valve cover gasket--no biggie. I removed the plugs. All plugs (OEM) were clean (they were new since the service a few weeks prior) except for cylinder 1 which was all blackish (oily looking) and wet. Cylinders 2-4 were clean and dry. The 2-4 pistons also appeared dry and I could see metal (the piston) through the plug hole. Cylinder 1 was wet, shiny and I could see what looked to be some black particulates on the top of the cylinder. I check the oil level also and the oil was clear, no foam or otherwise abnormal appearance. The level was about at the M in "MAX."
The next day, Saturday, I filled the coolant res with water to see if restarting the engine would force water out of the reservoir. It didn't. But I observed light whips of steam form the coolant tank. ANyway, so I drained the coolant, ran the car a bit to ensure the water was out of the cylinder and parked it.
That's when I read the posts here about head retorquing and other headgasket related posts.
Does it sound like retorquing the head bolts would solve my problem?
For those who have retorqued their head bolts, how long has it lasted? How confident should I/could I be in retorquing the bolts and headgasket integrity? Is it a ticking time bomb?
My next steps I plan are:
do a compression test on all cylinders
do a coolant pressure test
retorque headbolts to 60Nm then to 90degrees
redo compression test
redo coolant pressure test
I sure would apprecaite any and all suggestions, including, "forget it, just replace the headgasket" that'd be fine too.
thanks a lot!
Scott
posted by 134.134.13...
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