Last night, I reported that the engine in the #1 car seized up. Initial reports diagnosed an oil pressure problem, but the more the team looked into things, the more serious the situation became. This was no minor problem, it was a case of the engine going off to Valhalla, leaving our black Saab 99 Turbo high and dry.
As you may have seen in comments, Jörgen mentioned that they were going to try and transplant another engine into the #1 car.
So here’s how it happened…..
The engine came from another 99T, which was owned by a friend of the team. The car was purchased from him, and taken to a garage about 30 minutes away. They started at around 11pm last night and finished, with the engine running, at 3:30 this morning!
Just before 8am, I had the pleasure of watching the #1 roll in to the Museum car park under its own power.
The guys responsible for this massive effort are from Historic Rally Racing Team, a Swedish firm full of Saab nuts, who are specialists in preparing and repairing older Saabs exactly for this sort of work.
They also looked over the #2 car, which had a cooling problem yesterday. It turns out the cooling fan is operated by a switch, rather than being operated automatically by the thermostat – a difference that perhaps hadn’t been communicated fully. The car is all-systems-go now and both cars made a spirited start to the event just after 8am.
Some spirited driving has ensued in the #2 car?
As Denny Crane always says….. “name on the door!”
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