1979-1993 & 94 Conv [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
A coolant change is a pretty easy thing to do. Its the first thing I tried out in the engine, only I replaced all the hoses too which made it a little more complicated, but not much.
You can get a thermostat from eeuroparts for 8 bucks. I used the nice mercedes coolant, and i think it ran me 15 dollars per gallon. I needed 1.5, so I bought two. If you use cheaper coolant, expect to spend 5 or 8 dollars a gallon max.
http://www.eeuroparts.com/dwos-bin/dynamic2.pl?nccust=eEuroparts.com&code=8817538aa
All you need to do is loosen the petcock (a hose over it makes it easier to catch the coolant) and drain the old stuff out. I would recommend flushing, as per the towsend site. I found that just sticking a garden hose in the expansion tank and running it full blast worked pretty well. You might clean out some of those hard to reach places better if you got the kit that you splice into the hoses to screw the garden hose onto (But you dont _need_ to do this by any means).
Anyhow, the thermostat is pretty easy to remove, I used a big adjustable wrench, I don't know exactly how big the nut on this thing is. Just drop the new tstat in, and your good to go.
Id say the whole job would take you no more than and hour and a half, even with some bumbling around and experimenting, which happens every time you try it for the first time. So, 90 mins, and 25-35 of parts.
Regarding a brake flush, I bought an EZbleed, and did this as well. I think it cost me about 35 bucks. The brake fluid ran about 20 dollars for all I needed. I flushed the clutch while I was at it. I would say this job took me about 2 hours, it wasnt very difficult, although it was made much easier by having a buddy to help out with pressing the brake pedal at times. So, to compare to having a shop do it, id say you could flush the brakes for about 50+ and a few hours of time. Compared to the 75 for the shop, its not all that much cheaper. You'd have the bleeder for next time, for what its worth.
ANyhow, not saying you should try all this stuff yourself. You should do what you are comfortable with. HOpefully my rambling gave you an idea of about how much the parts cost for these jobs, and how much (And how difficult) your labor would be. Helps to compare to paying someone to do it, and whether you think you could handle the job. Chances are you could handle these jobs, but if you've got the cash, you could have the shop do it.
To sum up, to me, the brake flush sounds like an OK price, but I think the coolant and TStat sounds a little bit on the high side.
Good luck!
Dave
posted by 216.220.7...
, Tue, 25 Mar 2003 09:06:37
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.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
