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  1. #1
    The Norwegian Rognmoe's Avatar
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    Rebuilding Ignition Cassettes

    Hey, all!

    Wondering if its possible to rebuild or recondition Saab ignition cassettes. Seeing as Saab, at least for the moment, is dead, it could be a decent business for someone to start. I wouldn't, obviously, because I'm not particularly handy. My fear would be that since Saab won't be making any more of them, it could be very difficult to come across them after a few years.

    Any thoughts?

  2. #2
    Renato Piereck
    Spreading the Saab virus rpiereck's Avatar
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    24 Jul 2011
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    '00 9-5 Aero SC, 87 900i 8v
    I have read this from a few sources so as far as I know it it true, both others with more knowledge car chime in: SAAB Parts is a completely separate business from SAAB Auto and was NOT included in the bankruptcy proceedings. I think the supply chain has been broken because SAAB Auto bought the parts from SAAB Parts and distributed them around the world. My educated guess is that SAAB Parts is probably a very profitable business, as it owns the patents for all SAAB spare parts and SAAB like any other used cars need those parts. My guess is that eventually the parts business will continue and it won't be a problem.

    Look at Rover as an example, the British car maker went down almost three decades before SAAB and its parts business was bought by a subsidiary of Catterpillar. Nowadays buying parts for old Rover cars isn't hard and most of all parts one needs can be easily found.

  3. #3
    The Norwegian Rognmoe's Avatar
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    Huh. Very interesting. And comforting! Glad to know all the spare parts aren't going to vanish with Saab's bankruptcy.

  4. #4
    Frank
    Administrator nordwulf's Avatar
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    previous: 2006 9-3, 2001-06 9-5, 2011 9-4X
    I have an old one laying around from a previous 9-5. I'll see if I can open it up and check if there are any replaceable parts. With the prices of DICs these days ($400+), it may be worth it to spend some time and recondition. It's such a waste to discard such a large part if it is just a small thing that fails.

  5. #5
    Renato Piereck
    Spreading the Saab virus rpiereck's Avatar
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    24 Jul 2011
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    '00 9-5 Aero SC, 87 900i 8v
    The DICs are made of two parts: the upper part (red on Trionic 5, black on Trionic 7), and the lower, black plastic part.

    The upper part houses the electronics, which are sealed and not repairable at an average home garage. On the picture below the red part has been separated from the black. No further tear down of the red piece is possible, from here on it's all either snapped toegther (I didn't attempt to pry it apart), or sealed with molten plastic.


    The lower part is basically made of the pegs that connect the DIC electronics to the spark plugs, and is made of plastic, rubber and springs. Black lower part as seen from the inside, note the broken peg on the right side, which I repaired.


    Unless you have some sort of advanced electronics background and specialized tools I don't see you repairing the upper part of the DICs. It's all solid state and sealed. The lower, plastic part can be repaired, however.

    I remember there was a thread on TSL a while back where a Volvo guy wanted to run Trionic 5 on a Volvo engine and was looking for a way to divorce the DIC's electronics and make them compatible to a Volvo engine, but the only way to get it done was to run custom made spark plug wires from the DIC to the plugs themselves. Not an elegant solution but probably the only way to have Trionic 5 running on anything other than a SAAB H-series 16 valve engine.

    I repaired a DIC with a broken lower portion peg with some epoxy glue, worked great. The DIC was also missing one of the springs in one of the pegs, and I was able to make a similar spring out of aviation grade 0.032" safety wire, had the same resistance and pretty much the same physical dimensions. I put that DIC back together, installed it on my NG900 and had it running in there for a few thousand miles, had no CEL, and no diminished performance.

    New spring not pretty but functional.


    So, if you ever find a DIC that has broken plastic pieces you can repair that, the electronics above it are what you should worry about, once that's fried it's junk.

    You can read my whole write up on repairing the DIC on my SAAB site: https://sites.google.com/site/pierec.../repairing-dic
    Now: '00 Saab 9-5 Aero Combi - '89 Peugeot 205 CTI - '91 Peugeot 309 GTI
    Gone: '87 Saab 900i - '95 Saab 900 SE Turbo

 

 

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