I may have to take and replace the master cylinder off my Saab. If you remember, in a previous episode I found out my clutch pedal felt like it was connected to nothing until the last 1/3rd of the travel, when it offered a bit of resistance. I was told to get to it you have to take the kick panel out, which is not that fun. But, before I do it I thought I should go back to my old standby, the 92 900S in the local yard.
Suggested tools- One 13mm 1/4 drive socket
- One 10mm 1/4 drive socket
- A set of torx bits, T20, T25, and T30.
- 1/4 drive extensions
- 1/4 drive ratchet.
From what I found out, both from the factory manual and the great people at Saab Central, the kick panel is a single piece that goes from one side of the car to another. It is held by 3 bolts: 2 10mm ones: here is the one on the left
and the ones on the right, which is hidden under the black tar-looking blob shown below behind the white wires.
The third bolt, a 13mm one, is hidden by the center console, right behind the ashtray. The 10mm are fairly easy to get to, but the 13mm is another story; we have to take the center console out:
So, the plan will be to get the kick panel unbolted from inside the car and then get the two 10mm bolts. So, let's get started: first we need to take the center console out, which means we must remove these two T25 bolts,
which are hidden behind a little cover between the shifter and the center console (the cover is removed by just yanking it out). Then, we remove the ashtray and find this 10mm bolt, which also needs to be removed.
And possibly this really long bolt I just happened to see there but looked long enough to hold parts together somehow. Of course, it may turn out it is there to hold the dashboard face, but hey.
Ok, fine. the center console is loose but I still cannot take it out (it seems I have to pull it forward to remove it). What I came up with was to take the black plastic out and then hopefully that will give me enough room to move the center console forward.
If you examine the sides of the black plastic on the center console, you will notice it is being held by 4 T25 screws,
and on the top by the metal plate we took the 10mm bolt from,
I did remove that metal plate just in case. When the black plastic cover is removed from the center console, what is left in the car looks rather empty,
But, now it can easily be pulled out, leaving us with this cable I have no idea what it is for:
Now if we go back to where the ashtray was, we will see this strange looking guy. Believe it or not, this is the 13mm bolt we mentioned before that also holds the center console.
So, we take it off.
Time to go back outside and remove the 10mm bolts. I will just show the one on the right side; the left one is the same. Since I was lazy or just thought there was too many wires in the way, I cut the two zip ties that held this bundle to the car. With a long extension you should not need to do this. But I did.
Moving the wires out of the way made it much easier for me to shove my big fat hand and remove the tar blob that was covering the bolt.
Now I can unbolt it. As I mentioned before, a longer (say, a 3in + a 9in extension) would have worked here rather nicely.
Back inside, the knee pad is being held only by friction and some tabs. So, all we need to do is to pull it back (or away from the firewall):
And then it will start moving out.
Do the same in the driver's side and you will end up with the knee pad on the floor. I carefully threw it on the back seat before starting the next step.
Now that the pad it out, we really do not have to get the air ducts out of the car. Probably it will not be a good idea, but I will do it anyway. But first, there is some controller thingie sitting on the top of the duct here,
and some relays on the other side. I wonder what they are there for.
But, I am here to take things out, and out I will take them. To the left of this picture you will notice one of the brackets holding the duct is loose. Someone took the master cylinder out and they way he did it was to unbolt that out and pry the duct away. Technically it is not a bad idea, but I like to work with as much space as possible. And, let's be honest: it was not that bad to take the dashboard out; the hardest was the center console. Of course, I may change my tune when I have to put it all back in.
Onwards with the original plan, I then unbolted the bracket on the right side.
Then there was this torx screw, which I want to say it was T30 but I could be wrong.
After you take that screw out, you would think it is ready to come of. Not quite, there is still this screw here.
I think that where those screws bolt the duct to the car change a bit throughout the production years. Reason is I could swear my convertible has different locations. Just a friendly warning. In any case, we reach this guy here, which you can either leave it alone (remember, duct is loose so it should not be in your way), or remove it. I will leave that to you.
For today, I took it off because I wanted a nice picture of the dash without anything in the way. You know, I personally think it does not look that bad without the center console in the way. What is your take?
Finally, we have a nice clean view to the clutch pedal and master cylinder.
In a future episode we will go about doing this to my car. Stay tuned!
I tried to carefully remove it but it did not come out as nicely as I would. But out it went.
Time to look up again. What do I see? There are the pedals and the master cylinder in all their glory! I stuck my hand there and found out I could reach them all without having to take all those parts I did in the 900 in the junkyard. Not bad at all.
First I disconnected the rubber hose that goes from the brake fluid reservoir to the master cylinder. To avoid it dripping all over the place I just turned it so the end that was connected to the clutch master cylinder ended up above the reservoir.
Before unbolting the master cylinder, I chose to loose the line that goes to the slave cylinder. This way, I take care of all the connections in the engine bay. I broke the line loose using my 13mm crowsfoot wrench because rounding off the nut in the end of the line would spoil my day.
Then it was a matter of turning loose the nut with a normal wrench. Not very fun because my hand had to be shoved stuck in there and then I could only turn a little bit at a time. Every so often I had to take my hand out and massage it. But loose it came.
Next on the list was to remove the little bracket that holds the clutch line against the left shock tower.
Reason for that is so we have a bit of play and be able to remove the line from the back of the master cylinder. Just to be on the safe side I placed a rag under it so it would not eat up the paint.
Now that is taken care of, it is time to remove the master cylinder. It really was just a matter of removing the two bolts that hold it to the firewall, and separating it from the clutch pedal (a clip holds a pin that goes through it and through the pedal). Here I am putting the new master cylinder in place. The picture would look the same for the old one.
After that it is a matter of connecting the rubber line back to the master cylinder.
And the metal line that feed the slave cylinder. After all that is done, we need to bleed the clutch system. I would like to have some help doing that but it feels like I will be on my own. So, I need to find a way to do it alone. But that is for another episode...
