Ricardo and FeliciaHacker.  thanks for that info. You are right, after 2 decades parts become hard to find and must be creative to fix and find upgrades.

I will try to find that brandof base adapter  here in Bogota. Otherwise internet will be the way. 

Oh God! I was out a few days and see where the events have led us! 

I even meant to notify you guys that i won't reply too fast, I have a lot on my plate and when i can get away from the computer I try really hard not to turn it on. (Even though i wanted to check on the Skoda forum) 

 

Let me go in points trying to keep some timing in answering the posts:

- compression test was done years ago when i got the car. I seem to have lost the photos of that but i thought they were all even. (can't recall the number though) 

 book is again in the workshop (far away) i do not know the compression values. I think 145psi for a cold engine form the 80-ies with 260k on it is OK...? NR4 stands out and i do not know why. Baffles me!

 

- spark plugs: Yeah, Ricardo, some truth in that... my impression was when i just pulled Nr4 out that it was wet, but probably from the petrol of it not igniting properly. I focused a lot more on the black/white coloring. Maybe I should have mentioned it, I think i decided at the moment there and then that it was just unburnt fuel. (I had bikes in the past, one was consuming oil, the JAwas were ever going out of ignition timing, so have seen a fair share of plugs) Why i did not say so in post nr1...? Mea Culpa! With the compression suspiciously higher in that cylinder I switched to my oil theory. I mean come on, we all been there, right? Hoping for something simpler than an engine rebuild!

 

- nta16, I'm hoping for vacuum leaks or whatnot, as that is easier to fix (if not to find) than anything else. More on that later! 

 

- After that the threadwar started, and i'm very sorry for that chaps. Yes, I'm really grateful for getting answers from a Skoda forum on my Saab. I got loads of good knowhow for the Felicia  here, and I prefer to ask people I feel that I know. (Of course not, but hey!) I could have gone to a Saab forum but I really think this engine is simple as a brick, so I was not expecting some magical issue with discolouring plugs. Etc. 

 

-nta16, why do you think I'm not answering or taking your advise? If that's the impression, sorry Man, not intentioned. I have many projects, renovating a house, building a Suzuki Savage for a trip that's 3 weeks away and checking the bloody war news daily to know when to grab the backpack and head for the border. Nah, you guys are much faster than I anticipated, and I feel bad about not following and checking every sane idea that comes up.

 

- J.R. : you can skim this through.   The bottom few lines will be more relevant.

(I do that too If I'm in a hurry... And That would support Ricardo's point of being concise and on the point, so that not to waste time, but then, I'm on nta16s opinion a bit, as this is not professional diagnostic workshop, but more like a gathering of likeminded people. At least I'd like to think so... so yeah, lengthy novels as I like to express myself that way, that annoys Ricardo a bit and you skim through. Relax! It's a joke! )

 

 

New developments as of yesterday and my thoughts:

 

- Got new plugs (NGK6BE as per manual) and before i installed them, I adjusted the gaps... and next to the gap spcs there were all kinds of interesting data for the ignition system so I also measured the resistance of the leads and measured the coil. I found that data in the workshop manual and thought why not. And turns out, that the book says much, much less resistance for leads than what I have. My  NGK leads were specifically bought for this car, but instead of 3-3.2k per lead I have 7-6k, so double. The Lead from coil to distributor is 4k in my case, should be 1k according to Haynes. 

- Checked coil as well, I mean, who knows who fixed this car before, right? Secondary winding should be 24-35k and I have much less... bud damn, I forgot the number... 4k???

 

- Nevertheless Started the car up. (wanted to test if EGR removal and blanking off does anything) 

And it did, Fired up on all 4 cylinders! 

 

Now:

- It's snow here, the Saab has no wheels (rims are getting painted) and it has no technical test. So a testride and plug color check is a no-go at the present moment. 

- Ricardo! You mentioned the leak test, and I meant to write to you. I have not done that, can you point to a decent write up of that? Any special tool needed?

- Now that the engine is running I'll do a proper compression test and will post the results. I'll try to get proper leads and check into that coil resistance.

 

As I wrote a bit before, be patient, I have some other fish to fry, this is a hobby car, so if i'm not coming back to you immediately or not do all that's advised, take it easy. 

 

Thanks a zillion for the help, much appreciated. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 hours ago, hzoltaan said:

-nta16, why do you think I'm not answering or taking your advise?

Thanks for your reply, I have not looked back my posts here, and not wanting to light any fireworks again here, I think I might have put something like that you were polite enough to have responded to my post(s) and then probably put my usual thoughts that anyone can ignore my posts, or anyone else's, if they want, this was in answer to other(s) not yourself.  Also, very unusually I actually remembered something and that was that you probably weren't able to rush back with replies anyway.

 

I am not sure where you are with you ignition firing and don't know which igniter head (as I call it) you have fitted but as a generality bear in mind the electronic may give different figures to CB points and book figures.  With my fully electronic (top and bottom) 123 dissy it would scar the brand new Bosch/Beru/other dissy cap posts (for the want of a better word) from the very first turnover let alone start.  I never checked my HT leads but they were very good quality.  As there was (an unquantified) fat spark I opened the spark plugs up a bit, but nowhere near as some suggested, and on an engine builder's/tuner/engineer/author/engine-model specialist rolling road we found 0.30" was best instead of as book 0.25".  This was on an Austin/BMC/BL A-series engine though, with NGK plugs.

 

 

 

@hzoltaan

12 hours ago, hzoltaan said:

Ricardo! You mentioned the leak test, and I meant to write to you. I have not done that, can you point to a decent write up of that? Any special tool needed?

If you want to see how it is done AND to learn some other interesting things on the side, I recommend this video.

If you need just the cylinder leakdown test (CLT) see this video.

@hzoltaan- couple of quick general thoughts, especially from rebuilding the engine, have you double-checked everything that you have already checked or double-checked or got a fresh pair of eyes to do so.

 

Haynes like all other sources of information (especially me) has errors and omissions and somethings have moved on and/or changed since the books were first published ( petrol, oils, parts quality -up and down, etc., etc.).

 

Over the internet are things about counterfeit  NGK plugs, I have no idea how accurate or widespread this really is but counterfeit it was said decades back about counterfeit parts at Merc UK Dealerships but the UK motor trade is rammed full of dodgy people and practices.

 

If you don't have access to compressed air did you also do a wet compression tests.

 

End of quick thoughts (on this at least) I have to put things as I think of them or I forget and I forget enough already.  Cheers.

  

11 minutes ago, nta16 said:

Haynes like all other sources of information (especially me) has errors and omissions and somethings have moved on and/or changed since the books were first published

 

 I think the best is to have them both, car manual and Haynes.

The second hepls you with photos how to assemble-dissasemble and helps you do some repairs or DIY things.

On 08/01/2024 at 11:55, hzoltaan said:

wanted to test if EGR removal and blanking off does anything

EGR removal on a car with a carburetor and no ECU is mainly advantageous. The engine will breathe better and will stay cleaner. As a comparison, imagine how it would be that somebody blows you cigarette smoke into your mouth/nose instead of fresh air just because you exhale "too much CO2 and NO". Yeah, the pollution will be slightly higher, but compared to all Diesel cars which leave behind trails of disgusting ash, your car is a spring flower,

Yeah I agree to that big time. Burning LPG is probably a better method to make a carburetted car cleaner than slapping an EGR on it,

It was one of the first things I did to this car after carb rebuild, to deactivate the EGR. Back then i just disconnected the vacuum hoses from it as it seemed to be stuck close. 

Now It was properly removed and exhaust port closed with an oil plug. (I got lucky, it's the same thread, 16x1.5)

 

 

Regarding manuals, I agree with you chaps, whenever I can I collect more of them. I love the ability to have the book open right next to the car and look into it. Used to have an old tablet for repair manuals in the workshop but it'd finally given up the fight. For the Felicia I have some great pdfs downloaded (even some body repair manual in Czech, that would tell me how to build a Felicia from a few squaremeters of salvaged corrugated garage doors. )

I used to have a Polish edition of a repair manual for Felicia but it was just horrible. Now I'm stuck with the pdfs, so every time I forget some torque or other detail, it's a jog back to the house where I keep the computer.

(gotta repair that bloody old laptop and have it in the garage) 

 

No developments now on the Saab front...

We are experiencing proper winter now. I have not seen the gauge go down below -20 since 2010, but yesterday morning it was -27. In the garage I have -8 right now. Yesterday tried to work on my bike (making heated grips if you ask) and after an hour or so just gave it up. Let's say it's uncomfortable. 

 

With EGR removed, vacuum lines sorted and with proper plugs it fired up properly a few days ago. Any kind of road testing will have to wait till the big freeze moves on.

Thanks a lot for ideas and help regarding this and also for the flexibility shown (Saab vs Skoda) .

 

 

 

3 hours ago, hzoltaan said:

Burning LPG is probably a better method to make a carburetted car cleaner 

 

I remember that @Thefeliciahacker has LPG (installed and adjusted by himself) in his car but is Injection so i presume it will work cleaner too? 

@hzoltaan

What values of cylinder compression are mentioned in your SAAB 900 workshop manual for B201 single carb?

56 minutes ago, D.FYLAKTOS said:

remember that @Thefeliciahacker has LPG (installed and adjusted by himself) in his car but is Injection so i presume it will work cleaner too?

Indeed I used to, lpg is a very clean fuel, but itself has no cleaning properties 

On 10/01/2024 at 16:34, RicardoM said:

@hzoltaan

What values of cylinder compression are mentioned in your SAAB 900 workshop manual for B201 single carb?

Sorry for not coming back at this earlier, I looked for that info, but found not much. There's compression ratio that's 9.2 I think. 

I repeated the compression test for a warmed up engine and it's all neat, 

Nr1-to Nr4, all in the region of 1000-1050 kpa, that's about 150psi. I'm happy with that. 

Weird is, that it was almost exactly the same when i did the test cold. And Nr4 cylinder showed much higher. I wonder why. 

 

And I wonder why i did not repeat the test on Nr4 back then after a weird value.  I guess I'm forgetting all that i learned in engineering.

 

Car starts fine now on all 4 cylinders. So I expected the color-coding of the plugs to be sorted but it's not.

The outer 2 cylinders are still black / dark grey, inner cylinders are white on the plugs....

 

But... my carb is probably wildly out of spec So I'll do that in the coming weeks and see what happens. 

It's definitely too rich, as there's a plug right on top of the engine side flange (exactly where the carb for suzuki carry has idle mixture screw) that looks like... well, idle mixture screw. As I started to turn that out it started to idle higher and higher, so I'm guessing it needs some extra air. I do not remember my last settings, but i recall that i kept adjusting fuel level and whatnot. 

Best is to remove it, and see if everything is up to spec. I have several different manuals now, thanks to Ricardo, I only need a free afternoon.

 

2 hours ago, hzoltaan said:

Nr1-to Nr4, all in the region of 1000-1050 kpa, that's about 150psi. I'm happy with that. 

You might be happy but the values are in the lower range. The definitive test is still the cylinder leak down test.

Here is a trick to decide if there are vacuum leaks. If you screw in (clockwise) the mixture screw all the way the engine should stop. If that doesn't happen, there are vacuum leaks and the carburetor will work like crap.

That trick is well know from 70's and still we use it in small carburetor motorcycles (which using 20W-50, an oil only for them and not for Felicia).

Hint: In Yamaha the screw is in the opposite position than Honda.