Quill Bearing

I have a 2001 Saturn SL 4d Sedan manual transmission and the other day the guys at the Saturn dealership were telling me that trans fluid is leaking internally. They said I need to have my quill bearing replaced. Of course they want $1000.

No trans fluid is leaking on the ground as yet.

Has anyone encountered this yet? Have you tried to replace it yourself? Am I being fed a line of bs?

Mike

Reply to
mike
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Usually it's the muffler bearings...

Is your transmission acting up?

Mike

mike wrote:

Reply to
Mike Romain

No, I had it in there for a checkup

Mike Roma> Usually it's the muffler bearings...

Reply to
mike

I wish I had a definitive answer for you, but going in for a check up and having that kind of BS fed to me would sure raise my rip off alarms as it obviously has done for you.

It 'sure' sounds like BS.....

Google says they can call the input shaft bearings 'quill' bearings, mostly on helicopters.....

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If the input bearings are going south, the tranny will fast start leaking fluid out the front.

If this is the case, you 'will' see it.

The part is likely less than fifty bucks and when I changed mine, it took less than 15 minutes with the tranny on the bench so they want to sucker you for $900.00 in labor to pull the tranny.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail >
Reply to
Mike Romain

Quill bearing is the bearing on the input of the transmission. It is behind the gearbox cover between the drive chain sprocket and the trans housing itself. It has a seal on it which has probably failed. It won't leak on the ground until it fails and takes out the gearbox itself. It is a common problem on Saturns. You need to pull the transaxle and pull it apart to change it out. While your there you might want to look at the clutch since the oil that passes the seal normally gets thrown that way.

Reply to
Steve W.

Saturn calls the input shaft bearing a quill bearing.

fwiw, search for saturn quill bearing on google and discover that the SL transmissions are shit. My sister dumped hers after it was going with

45,000 miles on it. It was either a 99 or an 01 SL, and was generally a big turd. When you wish you had your NEON back... that's saying something. :)

Ray

Reply to
ray

Steve,

Excellent writeup. Are there any special tools required to change out the quill bear> >>>

Reply to
mike

I think the single biggest issue here is you probably need to remove the transmission from the vehicle, which is why it's an expensive fix for a $5* part. (I don't know how much the bearing costs to change, I'm just assuming it's cheap and mostly labour for the tranny R&R.)

Ray

Reply to
ray

I can remove the tranny myself.

I was just w> mike wrote:

Reply to
mike

This is the input shaft bearing on the transmission. They leak transmission fluid onto the clutch.

If your clutch isn't slipping, I would just keep checking the level frequently, like every time you change your oil. Eventually it'll get to the point where you'll blow the clutch.

The expensive part is getting the whole thing apart, and if you are going to replace the bearings you might as well replace the clutch anyway while you have it apart.

Just don't let the transmission go dry whatever you do. If you are worried about your ability to keep the level checked regularly, just change the bearing out and be done with it.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

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