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The car: Base ’99 9-3, 5 speed, 175K miles.
The symptom: Walked out of work one day and car would not start. It cranked fine but there was no indication that it would fire. Since I replaced the DI Cassette at 126K, I did not suspect this (besides, no burned plastic smell), though I feared it in the back of my mind. I figured it was either no fuel or no spark. I thought it may be Crankshaft position sensor, but based on feedback from this site, the initial symptom of that seems to be not firing while hot, not when cold. I came back to work the next day with a rubber mallet and a pile of other tools. It turns out that the rubber mallet is the only one that I would need. With someone else whacking on the bottom of the fuel tank, the car turned over after about 10 seconds of cranking. Well, that pretty much confirmed that it was the fuel pump. One whack at the end of the day and I was driving it home (with my carpool companion following me in his car). I made it about half of the way home, and then the rubber mallet was no longer effective (like a jockey beating a dead horse). My neighbor pulled me home the rest of the way with is Expedition and a tow strap. Very white knuckle experience. You cannot see a damned thing around the Expedition in a Saab, but the aerodynamics were excellent, I was definitely gaining on him going downhill ;-) Car is now safe in my garage.
The parts:
One walbro pump insert – Saabsite PN 8822017A (one barb model). I was willing to save the extra $350 to take apart the assembly myself and replace the pump. $115
Bosch fuel filter - Saabsite PN 71039. $17
Fuel pump cover – Saabsite PN 4156550. $23
Fuel pump cover O-ring – Saabsite PN 4160511. $10
Fuel filter sealing ring (2 of each size, 4 total) Saabsite PN’s 4443883 and 4161162. $6
Fuel pressure regulator (not necessary, but I bought in case the other one got plugged, kind of pricey though) Saabsite PN 9118850. $60
The fun (as best as I can remember it):
I decided based on some of the feedback here to use the “drop the tank” method. My car has seen 9 Michigan and Minnesota winters so I was expecting the worst from the bolts holding the pump straps to the undercarriage. The night before I hit them with some penetrating oil, I would recommend this. I would also recommend a 13mm ratcheting wrench for the removal. Luckily, I have used the same size on some of my other Saab repairs, so I already had the right size. I put the car in gear, chocked the front wheels in both the front and rear and used a floor jack to jack each side of the rear on the suspension bar that runs between both rear wheels. I did this because I wanted the “real” jack points for my jack stands. I jacked it up as high as I could (for working room) and got it up on stands. It was high enough that I could work under it with a creeper for most tasks, something I cannot normally do under my Saab at the regular jacking height. I would also disconnect the positive battery terminal at this point. There is no reason for there to be 12V to the fuel pump while you are messing around with the gas tank.
Removing the gas in the tank: I had roughly 4 gallons of gas in my tank when I started. If you trace the fuel filler line where it goes into the tank, there is a hose clamp right at the inlet. Remove this hose clamp and slide it back onto the fuel filler line. There is another metal clamp (about 2-3 inches wide) that holds the fuel filler line and a smaller fuel line to the underbody of the car. This uses a plastic (seemed, but looked plastic) allen screw (6 or 7 mm head?) to secure it. Remove this screw and separate the fuel filler line from the clamp. This should give the fuel filler line enough play to allow you to pull it off of the tank inlet. The tank has an anti-siphon device in it at the very bottom where the fuel filler line meets it. If you poke around with your finger you can feel it (the opening is toward the bottom). The biggest diameter tubing that I could get to bypass the anti-siphon was about 3/8” OD, just feel the tubing through the small hole at the bottom of the anti-siphon device. Then you can suck some gasoline fumes to start your siphon. I managed to get the tank down to about a gallon of fuel. That was plenty light.
Removing tank and fuel lines: Loosening the straps on the tank was easy for me. They only have bolts on the rear portion of each strap (there are two straps), the front of each strap fits into a T-shaped keyhole in the undercarriage. I used my floor jack with a spare scrap of plywood between it and the tank to keep the level of the gas tank descending at a controlled rate as I loosened the strap nuts. Again these are 13mm, and turned fairly easily with a ratcheting wrench. You many notice that the emergency brake cable for the left rear wheel passes underneath the gas tank next to the strap. This will need to be moved off to the left side of the car to get the tank to clear on the way down. I dropped the tank about 5-6 inches so that I could see what the heck was going on top of it. There are two wiring harnesses to the top of the tank (each with a funky Saab-like electrical connector). These are color coded black and red, so they are hard to confuse when putting them back together. These connectors are just like those on the DIC, you need pry the tab on one side just a little bit, and then slide it out almost ½”, when you do that the connectors will disengage automatically, as they follow a slot on the sliding tab that you are pulling on. I believe there are also 3 fuel lines to disconnect, two are right on top of the fuel pump (one is pressurized to the pump, the other is a return line). The third connector is further on the left side of the tank and runs to the fuel evaporator canister. I disconnected the pressurized line at the fuel filter rather than at the top of the tank (one less plastic connector to worry about breaking). You will probably want to have a drain pan ready when you disconnect the pressurized fuel line, as a fair amount of fuel will drain onto the floor. The return line I removed from the top of the tank. Its relatively easy to tell what you have to push on to get to let go, but it pulls out way further than you would ever expect, once you get it going (maybe ¾ to 1”). Again, be careful not to break it, better to be patient than to have to replace the entire fuel line. The third fuel line at the top of the tank runs to the evaporative canister. I disconnected this one at the canister. This is not self explanatory. I had to slightly crack one of the plastic tabs to get it off (but it clamped back on just fine when I put it together). There is a fourth fuel line that runs in a channel on the top side of the tank from front to rear. It is attached to the aforementioned clamp that holds the fuel filler line to the bottom of the car. It appears that it also needs to be detached to lower the tank. It has a coupling right above what would be the rear axle. It is released by pressing the two blue tabs together at the same time and pulling. Not easy, it took me about 15 minutes to get this one (and a few choice curse words). You can remove the fuel filter now too, just to get it out of the way. The fuel filter is located just in front of the right rear wheel. There is a small plastic cover that you have to remove to get access to it. There are two plastic hex screws (10mm?) that are easily turned with just the screwdriver attachment to the socket. If you haven’t already removed the inlet side, its just a hex bolt (19mm?) and two washers (fuel will spill here). The outlet side is smaller hex bolt (17 mm?) and two smaller washers. The fuel filter is held on by a metal strap that wraps the filter and is secured with a Torx screw (T-27?). This sucker was quite rusty for me, but it turned OK. After this you should be able to drop the tank down , and toward the right side of the car. At anytime you may need to maneuver it around brake cables, exhaust shrouds and the rear suspension to get it to come down, but it does come down, and the top of it will be absolutely filthy when it does drop.
Fuel pump assembly removal: Cover up the fuel filler hole and clean off the top of this tank, you don’t want any of this stuff getting into your gas tank while you have the fuel pump out. The cover that holds that pump assembly on is not fun. It’s torqued on pretty tight and you don’t want to buy the special $100 tool to remove it with. I bought a second cover and O-ring because I knew that I was likely to beat the crap out of the original getting it off. I sat on the tank (careful again not to bust any fuel lines still hanging on the tank) and whacked at the cover with a hammer and screwdriver. It turns out that you need a pretty wide blade on the screwdriver to keep from knocking off the fins on the cover. However, it also turns out that if you knock off half a dozen or so fins, you get a much better angle with the screwdriver (you can actually direct the force tangent to the cover, instead of at some less ideal angle). When I got the cover off, the O-ring looked pristine, but I replaced it anyway, why risk it. The fuel pump assembly pulls out, but I had to rotate it 180 degrees clockwise to get the fuel level float to clear the hole before I pulled it out (you may want to note the exact position of the fuel pump assembly in the tank, if it doesn’t go back in the same position, then the float for the fuel level sending unit cannot register all of the way to full – mine stops at ¾ now). It looks like some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption. There are two metal straps that hold the top half to the bottom half. If you use a small screwdriver to pry up the end of the straps on the bottom half, they pop right off. Removing the canister looking thing that protects the bottom half was harder than it looked. While worrying about breaking the tabs, it was difficult to get more than one tab to release at a time (there are 4 tabs). The fuel lines inside of this puppy are stiff to say the least. I simply cut the old fuel line right at the crest of the top barb of the fuel pump ( better to cut than break I say). Once you disconnect the power leads from the pump (be sure to note which is + and which is – for future reference), you can remove the pump from its rubber housing. Be careful not to break or rip the rubber. On my pump, I had to modify the pump housing slightly to get it back into the rubber housing. There was a protrusion around the + terminal that a minute on the bench grinder took care of. Also, since the fuel line is impossible to get back onto the barb of the new fuel pump, a trip to the hardware store is in order. About 3 inches of rubber fuel line (5/8” OD, 3/8” ID) and two hose clamps will do the trick. Put the hose clamps on your fuel line loosely, place the recently cut “old” fuel line in one end and the barb of the fuel pump in the other and clamp down. Voila’. FYI: when I pulled the old fuel pump I measured the resistance across the terminals with a multimeter, it was 600000+ ohms, the new pump was 2 ohms. I felt even better that I was on the right track.
Puttin’ it all back together: This part is really just an exercise in diligence, doing the reverse of what you did to take it apart in the first place. Its tricky getting the tank crammed back up into place, but it will go. For me, the most rewarding part was that the car turned over the first time that I put the key in. Very nice. A $1000 job done for $200 or so.
I hope that this helps someone do this job in the future. Just trying to give back, given how much time and money this board has saved me. Sorry I didn’t have any pictures to post, I tried to be as descriptive as possible.
posted by 136.237.60...
, Wed, 9 May 2007 14:37:50
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