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Even though the Saab came with cruise control from the factory, it has not worked as long as I have owned the car. Originally the cruise control set button was a little loose. A mechanic actually broke off the set button during the MD state inspection, yet one more reason why I hate the state inspection. Anyways I replaced the button with a unit of eBay and prayed that my cruise control would start working again. No go, still broken.
Well I finally decided to tackle this project. I printed out the wiring diagram and set out to start checking components one at a time. I started with the clutch switch. It detects if I push the clutch in which will turn off cruise control. I quickly realized that the switched worked fine however it was out of alignment which prevented it from allowing voltage to pass when the clutch was fully released. The same was true for the brake switch right next to it.
As it turns out both sensors are mounted to a metal bracket. This bracket is held in place by two bolts that, when loose, allow the plate the rotate on the bolt axis. I assure you these bolts were not loose. One in particular was so tight that I was unable to get it to loosen up so I could reposition the bracket. A few swings of the hammer got the bracket back to the right spot even with the bolts being tight.
Before I tested anything else I decided to go for a test drive and see if that fixed it. Sure enough my cruise control was working, and working great! It is refreshing to fix something on the car without having to buy any parts. I could get used to that.
Since the cruise control had never worked it was fun playing with it to see what it would do. It will not engage below 25 mph. Not sure why. Also, if you hold down the set button the cruise speed increases. Nothing special about that. One thing though is that the saab does not seem to have a limiter on the throttle. If you press and hold set while the RPMs are a little higher, it will floor it and you will see max boost which will cause you to accelerate VERY quickly. I like this cruise control system, it drives just like me :) Pictures
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| | | gray metal bracket above clutch and brake pedal needed to be pushed closer to pedals | | | 