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School me..OK Posted by CMyles [Email]  (#1126) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from CMyles) on Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:59:02
In Reply to: School Me on Transmissions, robp, Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:40:14 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
robp,
OK. All the five speeds are pretty good when properly put together. The early units relied upon shift centering in the external shifter assembly while the later units had the centering built into the unit. The later units have a slightly larger rear pinion bearing, improvements to the cluster shaft bearing and the last units have a modification to the 1-2 shift fork. Those are by no means the only changes but the ones which are most significant. When new or freshly rebuilt it's reasonable to expect to get 150,000 miles from one before it starts whining for bearings IF it's been treated with respect. When I go looking for one I try to get any post 1987 unit but I wouldn't just pass on a good earlier unit at the right price. If you're looking at buying a car with a five speed check the mileage and deduct it from 150K and you'll have a general idea of how long the transaxle will run before it needs to come out. If the car has been brutalized all bets are off.
Removal and replacement (setting aside the actual rebuilding) is a pretty big job because in C900s the transaxle is beneath the engine and the entire power unit must come out to pull the transaxle. (It can come out the bottom but no real Saab mechanic does that, it's usually harder than pulling the entire power unit.) So it's not like swapping a transmission in an old Buick. People often bail on their C900 when they get the estimate for replacing the transmission. (But not guys like us.)
The Borg-Warner T37 three speed is the automatic version and they aren't very popular anymore. They usually gave about the same 150K when new or fresh. Rebuilding a T37 always was a pain in the ass (I did lots of them) because B-W agreed to make the parts "captive" so that you HAD to get them through Saab and the prices were high. So I had a huge stockpile of cores to steal hard parts from. A new pump was $750 back then! There was a very short list of pieces which were shared with the B-W T35 (on which the T37 was based). The aftermarket kits were just OK. Some of the seals and rings in them were not acceptable so I augmented the kits with some OEM parts. The aftermarket pump to converter seals were highly unreliable and I kept OEM ones on hand at about $15 each. When a T37 failed there often were some hard parts that needed to be cleaned up by a machinist and I kept a few of those guys busy. So if you want to do it right (and reliably) it's not like rebuilding a Chrysler 727 or a TH350 (God bless 'em) for which the hard parts are widely available and dirt cheap. Once in a blue moon I would open up a T37 that only needed friction elements and seals but that was the exception not the rule. Of course I'm kind of a perfectionist, you need to be when you're gambling an 8 hour R and R on the quality of your rebuild, I know some guys just toss in the plates and bands, seals and gaskets and put it back on the road but I wouldn't. The good news is that you can get a well built, guaranteed and dyno tested T37 from Eriksson Industries for a pretty reasonable price still today.
If you are buying a C900 and are happy with a stick then it's best to avoid the automatic. If you must have an automatic then just consider the above information as you shop around. Test drive the hell out of it and consider the mileage it's seen and maintenance it's had. The funny thing is that 150K isn't bad mileage to get from a transaxle but when it's in a car where everything else seems to last indefinitely it's the weak link. So I don't think of them as weak transaxles. I think of them as great cars. Hope this helps, good luck.
posted by 198.233....
, Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:59:02 <-- Viewing This Message, Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:40:34, Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:50:06, Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:19:33, Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:24:10, Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:32:36
, Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:44:39, Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:20:34, Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:26:08, Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:29:03
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