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Normally you can get both the shaft and side seals from West of Sweden SAAB, unless Chip happens to be out of them at the moment.
If the ring and pinion aren't too badly chewed up, you may be able to quiet it down a bit and postpone further damage by re-torquing the pinion shaft nut. These tend to lose torque over time as the bearing clearances open up with wear. The shop manual says you're supposed to torque this nut to 87 ft/lbs, then slacken and retighten to 44 ft/lbs -- but Jack Lawrence of Motor Sport Services (MSS) told me that almost everyone nowadays uses at least 50% higher torque. It's not unusual to find a worn one is only finger tight!
If your transaxle has never been apart before, you may find that it uses the original-style pinion nut and fold-over locking washer. These are kind of a pain because when you retighten the nut, the tab can tear off the washer. SAAB eventually introduced an improved type with a thicker washer and a shouldered nut -- you lock it by peening the rim. You can get these nuts and washers from MSS.
Note that while torquing the pinion shaft nut isn't difficult, getting at it is fairly advanced. You have to remove the transaxle rear cover, which means dealing with the poppet balls in the gear forks -- the forks slide on shafts that are threaded into the rear cover, and the balls love to come flying out when you remove the cover and pull out the shafts. Then when you put it back together, you have to retain the balls inside the forks under spring pressure while you slide the shafts in; a socket just small enough to fit inside the fork works for this.
If you really want to do things right when replacing the end cover, you also should measure the clearances between the rear bearings and their receiving surfaces in the cover, and remove or add shims to make sure the clearance is correct. This assures that the bearings will have the correct load when you torque down the cover bolts to the correct values. It's not hard to do, but does require a depth micrometer, which not everyone has. Even if you have to skip this step, though, it's probably worth checking the tightness of the pinion shaft nut and replacing/retorquing it if necessary... might make your box last somewhat longer, even if it doesn't make it quieter.
PS -- The person who said don't use heavier oils was 100% correct! One of the things you'll see when you pull off the rear cover is a little cast-in catcher cup that collects oil flung off the gears and directs it down to lubricate the rear bearings. If the oil you use is too thick, it won't get flung far enough to reach this catcher, and the bearings won't get lubrication! You might get away with it for a while, but eventually you'll change the transaxle lube and find pieces of bearing cage stuck to the magnet -- yikes!
posted by 68.227.170...
, Wed, 7 Dec 2005 00:47:03
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