AUTO TRANSMISSION SERVICE 900 up to 93 and 94 Convertible

Remove the flat screwdriver plug in the front pan and drain the fluid. It has a seal which should be replaced. Letting the front end of the car down will allow more fluid to drain. Then remove the 10 mm bolts holding the front pan.

Remove the pan and clean the magnet and the pan. Use Brake clean and a rag and shop air if it is available. Be real clean with it. Scrape off any old gasket/sealant on the pan and the tranny.

Then remove the right large aluminum pick up tube to access the right screw holding the filter in place. The tube is held in place by a metal tab you just pull back and extract the tube. It has an o ring so don't lose it. Then remove the two flat screws holding the filter in. Clean the filter by running brake clean through the hole that goes around the tube. Blowing it out with air helps a lot. Do not use carb clean on or in the tranny. Brake clean is as strong as you want to use, be careful with it, use it sparingly and allow any residue to dry. Put the cleaned filter back and reinstall the pick up tube you removed. Double check all the tubes you can get to to make sure they are all tight.

Make sure the pan hasn't been bent up into the filter. If so, straighten it out or replace it. Check that the pans have not been over torqued and that their sealing surfaces are smooth and level. A little work with a hammer can straighten minorly deformed pans out. Ones that this won't get a level surface on should be replaced or leaks will result. If the filter has been bent, replace it. Clean all the sealing surfaces well, cleaning any oil off with a rag and brake clean. Use a new pan gasket and use LocTite 518 anaerobic sealer (Not the thread lock stuff) on both sides of it. Do not use silicon sealers, they can flake off inside the tranny and block critical passages.

The 518 only dries between sealed parts and can be easily removes on future repairs. Just before you put the pan back on, wipe off any dripping fluid on the trannies sealing surfaces. The secret to getting these pans to seal is dryness, torquing the bolts, and using the LocTite 518. The pans can be hard to seal otherwise. If you don't have a torque wrench or torque meter that reads really low (like 5 ft lbs) just try to get the bolts as even as possible by feel and don't over tighten them. The torque spec is 18 INCH pounds (Not much). Hand tight is enough.

Since the tranny holds 8.5 quarts of fluid, removing the front pan only gets out about 3.5 quarts. Most of the remainder is held in the torque converter and there is no way to get it out. What I do is service the tranny as above, refill, take it for a test drive and then change the fluid through the drain plug again and refill. Then change it again this way at the next oil change.

Not doing this renders the whole procedure not worth the effort as the majority of the fluid will be old. Do not use additives. Put three quarts in on refill, start the car, move the selector through the gears, pausing about 30 sec. at each position to flush any air out. Then recheck the level and adjust as necessary. Test drive until the car is warm and recheck level with the car idling in park. Overfilling is as bad as under filling.

To check the final drive, there is a 3/8 square plug at the right axle, remove it by inserting a racket in it and turning it out. Then remove the drain at the back of the tranny, either a 12 mm Allen or a 3/8 square drive, depending on the year. This plug can be tight as hell. Giving it a good smack with a hammer usually makes it easier to remove. Drain the fluid and refill with 75W90 for cars up to 92. 92-93 and 94 convertibles used 10w30 engine oil in the final drive. It is fine to switch from oil to the gear lube in the final drive, but if the final drive initially contained gear lube, do not switch it to engine oil. You can tell gear lube by its strong sulfur smell. Fill until the level is even with the bottom of the hole on the right side plug (fill it till it runs out the hole). Fill through the side hole by putting a length of rubber tubing on the end of one of the gear oil bottles and squeezing. It usually takes around two of the bottles of gear lube/oil. Buy three to be sure to have enough. You can take back one if you don't open it, or save it for next time. Run a little fresh through before putting the drain back to wash out the case a little bit.

ADJUSTMENT OF KICK DOWN CABLE

The kick down or downshift cable normally has a stop crimped to the cable just where it emerges from the sheath at the throttle. Normally, the cable is adjusted so that this crimp is 2 mm from the cable end. Perfect adjustment requires a pressure gauge. You can get an acceptable adjustment by feel. If the car is upshifting late or downshifting too soon with throttle application, loosen the cable tension by shortening the distance from the crimp to the sheath by means of the lock nuts holding the cable to the throttle bracket. If the car upshifts early, and doesn't have a passing gear, tighten the cable, effectively lengthening the distance from the crimp to the sheath again by means of the lock nuts on the cable.

BAND ADJUSTMENT

Though not part of a specified service interval, sometimes adjusting the bands will improve an autos shifting and prolong its life. This is not usually done with transmission routine service. The factory manual gives no interval for adjusting the bands. Adjustment of the front band requires pan removal and a special spacer tool. It is not advised to be done without the tool. If you want to try, the tool is actually just a 1/4 inch thick spacer to be placed between the piston and the arm's bolt end and then retorquing the nut against the spacer. The torque spec for the square headed bolt is 10 inch/lbs, for the lock nut, 10 ft/lbs. The rear band can be adjusted by loosening the lock nut on the adjuster and torquing the adjustment bolt to 10 ft lbs and then loosening the adjuster 3/4 turns, holding the adjuster and tightening the lock nut. because of the use of the special tool, it is advised you see a Saab shop to have the band adjustment done. Since the pan must be removed to carry it out, you might well let the shop do the servicing at that time.

PARTS LIST

Drain seal 4118527 $2

Front pan gasket 9335423 (This may be a paper gasket, Saab has an updated one with metal in it that is green. That is a better gasket, more expensive, if you can get it. The paper works fine with the 518) $6 paper, $30 metal The pans have been redesigned to include torque bands to even the load on the gaskets. There is a front and rear pan kit. If you have to buy new pans, these are what you will get.

Filter 7544125 $60 "ITS A METAL SCREEN , I TAKE THE PRESSURE WASHER AND COMPRESSED AIR TO IT TILL NO MORE TRASH IS EVIDENT. I ALSO TAP IT ON A HARD SURFACE TO KNOCK ANY STUBRON TRASH LOOSE." You may want to take this filter to the car wash and save yourself some bucks.

Final drive seal 8717415 $3

ATF Type F 4 quarts just to fill once after draining, 12 quarts to do the multiple changes to flush the converter. About $2 a quart. Use a name brand fluid

LocTite 518 one tube $15

BrakeClean 2 cans $3 each

FOR THE FINAL DRIVE "DIFFERENTIAL SECTION" THE FLUID TYPE IS DETERMINED BY YEAR AND WHAT HAS BEEN USED IN THE PAST.

Gear Lube 75w90 $5 quart 3 required to be safe. Use a name brand fluid here.

Engine Oil 10w30 $3 quart 3 required to be safe. use a name brand oil here.

Back To Tranny Index