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UG!
So it's been a while since my last post... i've been interning at http://www.wsdg.com , where if you read up on you'll see that it is the architectural design firm that built Jimi Hendrix's studio in 1969... among other things...
...pretty cool job! (i went to school for audio engineering)
I was an intern there for 3 months, during which time i drove to and from work about 10 miles each way everyday, not to mention literally hundreds of miles each month running various errands for them, AND driving 2 hours to my parents house, and 2 hours back almost every weekend!
I am very proud to say that my car never had an incident that cost over $100 to take care of during this time.
Brakes were sticky, but just a brake flush solved it....
Power steering making noise, and leaking, but nothing re-filling the fluid doesn't take care of (every week or 2 tho...) ;(
and various lights and electrical burps... but all of which i fix myself...
...12 inches of snow... but no problem with blizzaks! (I felt like i was driving a tank by the way!)
Oh, even a mysterious RICH running situation didn't stop me from using it for the job... I might as well elaborate on that, since i've been meaning to post about this anyways...
I have an autometer air fuel gauge, and it pegs off the the end of the green (rich) side when i step on the gas. i'm at full boost (above 15psi) which will hold for about 3-5 seconds, then all of a sudden the car will BUCK... and i don't think it's fuel cut off, it feels like a sudden stall.
I Switched out di's, even bought a new one... no change
Runs kind of lumpy at idle, but not bad... normal driving the gauge still reads in the rich tho...
Anyways, that bucking *MIGHT* have been caused by spark plugs being gapped to 1.1 almost 1.2 on one of them... prolly didn't help... but i fixed that
also swapped out performance fuel chip for a stock chip, situation didnt change much tho
I've been afraid to give it full throttle cause the bucking is so violent.
I replaced the Air mass meter with another one, and the TPS with another one too... no difference at all... perhaps a little lumpier idle if any change...
when i let off the gas, rpm's slow a little bit, enough to dim lights, then it catches itself and runs normal again... every time i let off accelerating...
ANYWAYS... the rich running i can deal with... what i CAN'T deal with, is the mysterious puddle of fluid that has stained approximately 2 square feet of my driveway!
here's the deal on that....
So, my car had been whining on acceleration, and decelleration in the last 30 days. possibly longer i just never bothered to notice.
the power steering system had been making a lot of noice, especially early in the cold ny mornings.... but i thought it was something else...
sure enough, i realized this low pitched.... almost like a grinding whine, if that makes any sense... was happeneing even when the car was out of gear... i think anyways, if i remember correctly...
it definately made the noise in gear though.
so as i accelerate, i notice this while is almost equal to the engine noise... very concerning as the tranny isn't even 20k miles old.
anyways... sorry this is so drawn out... (yawn) never drink and saabnet folks it just leads to long boring posts! ;)
the whine pissed me off more than anything, but i was worried that the tranny fluid might be low, or gone... so one day i pulled the tranny dipstick.
oh for those of you who don't know, i drive a 1990 9000 turbo.
check the link below for old details about it... (not updated in a long time)
i pulled the dipstick, and i can't freaking tell how much fluid there is in it.
I'm not actually sure if it's the right stick. Why it would be the wrong one, i can't say, but i've had several trannies in it and several people look at it... so it's possible...
the main reason why i think it'd be wrong is the fact that the metal clip that should snap tight over the black plastic cap as it's pushed in doesn't snap or even touch the cap... it might have gotten bent? but it seems to me that whatever cap is there should fit better...
...anyways... i'm nitpicking non important details here... i couldn't read the stick... if it was the wrong one, that would explain why it's not accurate.
All i could tell is that there was SOME fluid in the tranny, but it definately was NOT full.
So at first i decided to put in a single quart of normal 10w 40, the only oil i had with me at the time.... i remember reading that you can just "top off" with normal engine oil... so i did...
this actually seemed to fix the whine for maybe a week or two. It could have been totally unrelated to putting the bottle in though, i have no idea... i wasn't paying attention becuse i was working so hard at my job, i just had no time to mess around with my car... all that mattered is that it was moving...
so...
the whine comes back eventually, and i get nervous... i start thinking bad things, like what if the tranny has a leak? i didn't act on this thought right away of course...
but, 2 days ago... before a 2 hour trip to my parents house, i thought it'd be a good idea to put some fluid in again, or to check it...
...same deal, when i pull out the stick, there is little or no evidence of any fluid being in there, and rather than thinking i have had NO fluid for the last 3 months, and my car is still running, i assumed the stick was wrong, so i managed to put in at least another bottle of oil into the tranny, this time 10w 30, cause that's all the gas station had.
I spilled quite a bit on the ground, cause it's a tight squeeze in there, which the gas station attendant wasn't happy about, but... oh well! ;)
i pretty much got another single quart in there at that time...
Both times that i put the oil in, i realized i should be consulting saabnet first, because i have NO IDEA how much oil the tranny should have in it...
... but i figured it would be better to put SOME in than A LOT in, because overfilling i thought would be bad.
i mean running low is bad too, but since it was working for so long... i just couldn't imagine it having no fluid in it...
anyways...
i make the trip home, and the car has been sitting for 2 days, while i'm moving out of my apartment in a 10 foot moving van.
today my mother noticed a rather large puddle of oil under the car, creeping down the driveway.
my heart sunk (and has yet to rise)
The leak appears to be coming from more the left side (driver side)of the car than the right... and it's dripping from maybe a foot, or a foot and a half back from the front of the car... no more than that though... if that helps you all get an idea of where it's coming from.
I wiped as much of the fluid off the driveway as i could deal with and smelled it, and it doesn't smell like power steering fluid OR motor oil...
it's not thick at all, it's more runny than anything...
i'm scared to move the car... just because it's my baby and it'd bleeding!
So...
i have some questions...
1. HOW MUCH FREAKIN OIL SHOULD I HAVE IN MY TRANNY???
2. What's the deal with the dipstick? is it right? How the hell was i able to drive for months and months and months if there was no oil in the transmission then, if the stick IS right???
3. If by adding those bottles of oil to an already full transmission, would that damage the transmission? Did i blow a seal on the transmssion from it being over pressurized?
4. Is there a drain plug on my tranny? or any kind of releaze valve to bleed off over pressure? Could i have managed to disturb one of these systems?
5. MY biggest question of all, if this leak is that bad, how come i was able to drive 2 hours home, before any major leaking occured? wouldn't all the fluid have leaked out on the drive home????????
6. My power steering fluid is at the "add" level, which is a weekly occurance. could this just be p.s. fluid? is there any way to test? turn the wheel and watch the fluid leak out maybe?
7. DID I KILL MY CAR????
8. is this the longest post ever?
9. too many questions?
10. ok i'll stop now?
:)
-gavin
posted by 69.168.104...
my 1990 9000 page, NOT updated in a LONG time
, Thu, 31 Mar 2005 10:59:28
, Thu, 31 Mar 2005 06:57:37
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