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I’ve worked on cars for years but am new to Saabs. I liked my friend’s 900 so I got 2 for myself. One is a nice ‘83 8 valve turbo. I got it at a good price because it leaks oil like crazy. This weekend I pulled the engine and transmission. I’m replacing every seal and gasket I can find to make sure I get all the offenders. No surprise that there are several.
Bentley manual looks to be really well written in general. I previously used it to replace my friend’s head gasket. I go through the 37 steps (in order) in the Bentley manual to pull the engine and transmission. These include Step #1, remove the hood, Step # 26, disconnect the hydraulic line to the clutch slave cylinder and finally step #37, raise the engine and transmission assembly out of the car. Let me note here that step #26 says nothing about removing the plastic clutch cover and removing the preload on the pressure plate springs. Can you see what’s coming?
So, the engine and transmission is now on the garage floor. I conclude the biggest gasket of all is the one between the engine and transmission. I open Bentley to the part on separating the engine from the transmission to get to this gasket. There are nine steps to this little beauty of a procedure. This is where things seemed to fall apart. I get to step # 7 where it says ”Remove the clutch slave cylinder mounting bolts. See section 411 (Clutch)”.
The allen head bolts for the slave cylinder wouldn’t come out because the rubber bellows on the slave cylinder was in the way as bolts were backed out. (The slave cylinder was fully compressed by the pressure plate springs) I looked at Bentley section 411 (Clutch) and it included a whole lot more than just the slave cylinder mounting bolts addressed in step #7 above. Specifically, it had a section on how to put the spacer ring into the springs of the clutch pressure plate to remove the preload. I first concluded this should not be necessary because one of the steps in inserting the spacer ring is to depress the clutch pedal. It didn’t make much sense to do this because the entire power train was now 10 feet from the car on the garage floor as a result of performing the 37 steps the manual specifies to remove the engine and transmission. As I looked closer, however, it was pretty clear that the pressure plate springs were jamming the flywheel against gear box side of the transmission and the slave cylinder against the primary chain side of the transmission. The engine wouldn't separate from the transmission as a result It took about an hour to convince myself of this fact, mostly because I didn’t really want to believe it. Nothing, however, I was able to think of would free the slave cylinder from the pressure plate and allow the engine to be lifted from the transmission.
I ended up cutting the slave cylinder (which was working just fine in the car) in half with a reciprocating saw. I did remember to remove the shaft that goes between the clutch disk and the primary chain sprocket I never would have thought of this trick on my own, but read that this was a last ditch fall back position for a malfunctioning slave cylinder here on the bulletin board. After cutting the slave cylinder in half, the engine came right off the transmission.
Question is, could I have gotten the slave cylinder out and /or separated the engine from the transmission in a case where the pressure plate springs were not preloaded by a spacer ring? If so, what trick did I miss? Alternatively, if this is not possible to do, has anyone else ever missed installing this spacer ring in the pressure plate the first time they pulled an engine and tried to separate the engine and transmission? I can’t imagine anyone would omit this detail a second time if, as I suspect, it is a necessary step, but one which is not in the Bentley manual.
, Mon, 15 Jan 2001 22:48:40
, Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:39:48
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