1985-1998 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
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You called it spot on: my 94 Aero's DI Cassette had died (on my wife and daughter coming home from Prom shopping at 11 pm on a dark stretch of US 101 between Morgan Hill and Gilroy, I might add.) The description I got that night when they got home at midnight was there was a "pop" like a belt had broken, but it sounded like it came from the rear of the car. Then no more power and a maneuver for the shoulder. (Fortunately, they were just getting on to the hiway and didn't have to go far to make it.) I first checked the Serp Belt but found it to be in great shape (replaced not long ago along with tensioner and idler pulley). So I posted a message here and the 1st responses pointed toward the DI.
I'm a skeptical kinda guy, so I had to check into the DI further, knowing the damned thing costs $325 or more, depending on where you buy it. (And I didn't know anyone in the area who would lend me one to try first.) I ran a compression test to see if the head gasket had popped, checked the plugs for wear and misfiring, looked for popped vacuum hoses, but nothing showed up, especially nothing that wouldn't result in "limp home" mode ability. Yet I'm still unwilling to accept that it is the expensive DI.
I realized my "library" contains several official SAAB manuals, one of which is the "2.7 Engine Management System Trionic" manual which has a wealth of info on troubleshooting the system. I spent a day or two reading the troubleshooting info and the technical info on each of the components, and came away with a few revelations. Every Trionic owner should order this manual if you want to seriously understand and troubleshoot the system. The descriptions of the system and each of its components and how they operate together is invaluable. I ran all the tests I could with simple tools and was able to narrow down the likely failure to the DI cassette. I didn't test the DI directly because I was too lazy to build a set of clamps to properly ground the spark plugs, and (quite frankly) I was afraid of starting a fire because fuel was definitely getting to the cylinders!! (I don't know if pulling the pump relay fuse will disable the DI cassette as well, and didn't look into how to otherwise disable fuel delivery because of time constraints.)
To bring a long story full circle, y'all called it right early on. And while I recommend that all Trionic owners buy manual 2:7 to understand their systems better, I give a GREAT BIG THANK YOU to all of you on this board (and Scott for making this Site what it is) and helping the rest of us figure out what the hell is going on with these complex machines.
Thanks! -Cal
posted by 69.107.7...
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