1983 900 automatic transmission

The reverse went out in my '83 900 automatic. It slips very badly all of a sudden. All forward gears are working fine. Any ideas? Is my transmission done for? Thanks Rod1148

Reply to
rod1148
Loading thread data ...

Sounds like a good excuse to drop in a 5 speed gearbox, the way the car was meant to be.

Reply to
James Sweet

Hi Rod, I've got 3-spd auto tranny's in my three running C900's. So far none of them have suffered significant failures.

Sounds like something isn't engaging properly when you select reverse. Are the forward gears all working properly? Have you tried manually selecting 1 and 2 as well as using the normal 'D' position?

From what I've read you will probably need to have the transmission removed to service it which as you'll know means the engine out as well.

This can be good and bad - lots of work to prepare, but if you need to do stuff on the engine which can't be done or isn't easy to do with the engine in the car (such as crankshaft seals, oil pump work, etc.), you could do engine repairs while it's out of the car and as someone else suggested put a manual tranny in place of the auto if you'd like to.

Only thing with that is you need to replace other stuff like the selector assembly and linkages (since the manual selector and linkage is very different to the auto one), and run a line from the bottom of the brake fluid reservoir to feed the clutch system. In our auto-tranny C900's that extra fluid line doesn't exist.

Also when you remove the auto tranny you'll need to remove the oil cooler which is either going to be the inline-with-bottom-radiator-hose type (likely since you car is an 83 like two of mine), or the under the right-side corner of the bumper type.

If it's the bottom radiator hose inline type you'll need to replace that hose since the cooler makes it into two sections.

I want to replace one of the auto tranny's with a manual eventually - the donor car I have here has a manual tranny but it's currently beyond my budget to extract it, service it to fix anything wrong, and do the tranny swap in one of the running cars. It won't happen overnight but it will happen! lol

Craig.

Reply to
Craig's Saab C900 Site

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.