The case of the grommet thingie

During my adventures changing the oil filter in this car, I brushed against a line. Following it, I found it led to the top of the intake manifold, where it ended in this oily connector. I guess it was supposed to be attached to the intake manifold, but attached to the intake manifold was something that was not on its agenda for the day. Since I did not have anything better to do, I decided to look what was inside that hole in the intake manifold.

As you can see, it look a bit on the wet side. Not flooded with oil, but it has enough oil there to make me wonder where it came from. Could it be coming through the throttle body? After all, there are many possible sources of oil on that side of the intake manifold:

1. The crankcase ventilation system, that feeds the (possibly oily) air right to before the turbo.
2. The turbo itself.

Or, how about this hose? If we look back at the first picture, it sure looks oily on the white/translucend plastic connection/fitting that sits on the top of the intake manifold.

While that question is important to ask, it is not that important right now. Main problem here is the fitting is not connected to the intake. If we examine it a bit closer we see the grommet that holds it in place is torn off. My spidey sense tells me something caused the grommet to change from being your usual, garden-variety soft rubber feel to having the same consistency of gelatin. And, as gelatin, it breaks easily. Add that to the list of things I need to buy.

But, where is the rest of the grommet? Did it just fall inside the intake or it made its way to the head? I was preparing myself to yank the intake manifold, but someone in Saab Central told me to calm down and instead look inside the intake manifold's plenum through the throttle body (hold it open and look through it). If the parts were still there, great. If not, they were sucked into the head. Since I was taking the hoses that go over the clutch assembly anyway, it was not much extra work to remove all the hoses in front of the throttle body.

Figure 4 shows what I saw through the throttle body, throttle plate held open. It seems I was lucky and the rest of that grommet is happily sitting inside the plenum. Next: how to take it out?