1979-1993 & 94 Conv [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
I'm new to 900's but have two of them. My 8 valve has several leaks, each of which could be called significant. I do my own work on these old cars (the price of parts is bad enough when they need everything). I just pulled the engine and separated it from the trans to get all the oil leaks stopped and to do a bunch of other things. It's still apart. Here's what I found.
My worse leak was from the seal around the crankshaft at the pulley end of the engine. (Nearest the firewall). It was hard to see where this was coming from because the crank pulley throws the oil all over the back of the engine, including up toward the head, as it spins. You may have this problem if the leak is at the back of the engine because the oil really gets spread in all directions. My seal was so bad, it had "spun" in the housing that it mounts into and in fact had come off on the pulley. I almost created a disaster by not noticing it was on the pulley shaft and putting the engine back together with two seals. (The old one on the pulley and the new one in the housing.) (GregD on this web site saved me from that.) An experienced Saab mechanic can do this replacement (crank pulley seal) fairly efficiently as well as do an accurate diagnosis. I understand it takes a ground down (short reach) socket to get the pulley bolt off if the engine is still in the car. Another reason to make sure you get an experienced Saab tech if you don't try to fix this yourself is that he will have this tool.
Next worse leak on my car was from the rear main seal (at the front of these cars). It is necessary to pull the clutch to get at this seal. This was also hard to diagnose because you can't see the seal until the clutch and flywheel are removed. The symptoms before I took it apart was that the oil was leaking out of a square hole near the front of the transmission. I knew this seal was bad when I took off the flywheel and there was oil on the crankshaft flange that the flywheel mounts to.
The third worse leak was from the oil return line from the turbo to the engine block. Mine was leaking at the gasket thats seals this line at the turbo. I could see oil leaking from the general area of the turbo before taking the line off. I could not, however see the exact area of the leak.
Fourth worse leak on my engine was the gasket between the oil filter housing and the block. This area has engine oil pressure from the oil pump and the other seals just have static pressure as found in the oil pan. This area was a little hard to see with the engine in the car because it is under the intake manifold. If I'd known where to look, it would have been obvious. The leak resulted when someone took off the housing but did not put on a new gasket.
Fifth worse one on my engine was the engine to trans gasket which your tech suspects. From the design of this seal, I'm surprised my leak wasn't worse. First, the engine is cast iron and the transmission is aluminum. They expand with heat at different rates. The gasket is thin steel and most of the bolts that hold the two assemblies together are along the sides of the engine, not at the ends. To compensate, the manual calls for sealant at the ends of the transmission, the top of which is actually the engine oil pan. I found that this gasket was leaking slightly at the ends of the transmission / engine assembley. The problem here (and for your situation) is that this area is also the area where leaks at the crankshaft seal will show up so distinguishing between the two types of leaks will be difficult.
My suggestions:
Go to a car wash that has an engine cleaning setting and clean off the engine. Park the car over some newspaper to locate the source of the leak. You want to try to identify the area of the leak as closely as possible. That way you can decide if you want to tackle the problem yourself or you can make and informed judgement as to the accuracy of your tech's diagnosis if you want to have the job done for you.
If you decide to do this yourself, get a good (Bentley) manual and read the writeup on the Townsend site on removing the crank pulley.
If you decide to have it done, get references for a shop that really knows Saabs. This is not a job for a guy who has not seen a lot of these cars and the failure modes, at least if you are going to pay for it.
As I said, it may be the engine to trans gasket on your car (requires pulling the engine), but my worse ones were seals at the crankshaft which can be repaired with the engine in the car. Either way, get several diagnoses from experienced people. The price to get it fixed (if you go that route) shouldn't vary much from shop to shop, but fixing the wrong area first will be really expensive. While I'm not an expert, I've done several engine oil seal replacements and I'm very careful. I almost blew this one. A word of encouragement? A friend had the crankshaft seals replaced on his 900 a few years ago. I don't remember the price, but he was surprised how reasonable it was in relation to what he was afraid he was getting into.
, Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:34:15
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
