Yesterday I was out for a spin in my M91 900 Turbo 16, and after I had driven a few kilometres I loose all the power in the middle of a sharp bend, while I was accelerating. My initial reaction was that something was wrong with the fuel supply, but after the road straighten out I realise this had to be a issue with the air supply. I was lucky and found a bus-stop in the middle of the countryside, and turned off to locate the fault. When I opened the hood, my idea about the air supply was absolute right, a hose from the intercooler to the throttle body had jumped off. A very quick fix if you have the right tool, but in a small second I got a little panic – in this car I don’t have a toolbox… This time it was false alarm, I was able to tighten the hose clamp with a flat screwdriver from the original tool kit.
I know – many of you guys in here drive newer cars as your daily driver, and have a big toolbox in the boot shouldn’t be necessary. As some of you know have I a M04 9-5 Aero as my daily driver, and like it or not – in this car I have a big toolbox in the boot. But isn’t very often I need some the tools for that car either, in the four years and 80’000km’s I’ve had it, it only has let me down three times;
- The fuel pump – after a attempt to change the pump outside my work (failed because I don’t had extra fuel hose – but I had a spare pump) I managed to get the pump working again, so I get home.
- On my way to the Oktoberfest 2012, when the crank sensor gave up. This happened appropriately enough when I was going to drive off a ferry, so two crew members had to push me off the boat… Luckily a crank sensor is a part of the “T7 rescue kit” (crank sensor, fuel pump and DI-unit 😉 ) so after the engine had cooled down a bit I changed the sensor myself.
- The hose from the boost valve to the turbo compressor. The thin hose had gnawed on the V-band clamp that connect the turbo and king cobra pipe, and at a point it went off. This resulted that I had no power at all… This time it was enough to cut the hose and connect it again until I get home and was able to mount the V-band clamp properly.
So in total no big things, two well known T7-issues, and one issue caused by bad work from my side – but some basic tools have saved me from tow-trucks and a lot of wasted time.
After slimming my toolbox down to my new tool-bag, I now have to a set of some wrenches, a monkey wrench, a big and a small flat screwdriver, some torx-bits, a hose clamp screwdriver with spiral blade, fuel-pump-tool, a cutting pier, a LED-torch, some cable ties + gaffa tape and at least some glows and rags for cleaning up stuff. And of course a box of scrubbing wipes for oil and other dirt.
So to sum this up, which basic tools do you think is nice to have in a small bag in the spare tire compartment? Or maybe you don’t have tools at all, and have the number for SAAB-assistance stored in your mobile phone?
And I almost forgot, on my way back home after visiting some friends I stopped and shoot some pics on my old 900.
Actually the time was around 00:45 when I shoot these pictures, and it’s still pretty much daylight outside where I live…
