[dladd]

quick question here! I just pulled the cover off the motor and peeked into the brushes. One of the brushes was not being held in by it's clip, as shown in the first photo below. I played with it a bit before taking this picture, so I don't know if all those marks were already there, or if I made them by putting the clip on and off before taking the photo.

The second photo shows the brush after I clipped it in place. It appears to be much more prominent than the adjacent brush. My assumption is that this is because it has been unclipped, and so it has not worn as much.

So, my questions are:

1) what happens on a motor if one of the brushes is unclipped like this? Will it damage the motor in any way? Is it possible that it's been this way for a long time with no ill affects?

2) Does it matter that now one brush is not worn the same amount as the rest?

[dladd]

alright, got an answer on the brush issue over in the motor forum (answer: don't worry about it).

So, new stupid question of the night... how do I hold the pressure plate from turning when removing it's bolts from the flywheel?

Side note, I gassed up my van today. The pump shut off at $100 and it wasn't full yet!

[david85]

Regarding the brush, were you able to get that metal clip to hold it down properly again? If yes, then I agree its not an issue.

For the pressure plate, ideally you would jamb it with something. Even a thick steel coat hanger that is twist tied to something on the transmission and the flywheel might do the trick. Or in some cases you can smack the handle of the wrench with your palm hard enough that the inertial of the flywheel is enough to break the bolt torque.

Last time I had mine apart, I was able to do it all by hand even with loctite on the bolts. Although if they are rusty, that may not apply.

Regarding the van? you know the answer to that

Just a suggestion, but you might find it easier to install and remove the motor and transmission assembly with the transmission mount on the transmission itself and undoing the hold down nut from under the car instead (Metric 15mm). That way the stem hangs down when you lower everything in place and aligns that half of the powertrain for you.

[notailpipe]

Originally Posted by dladd

how do I hold the pressure plate from turning when removing it's bolts from the flywheel?

Great question. One answer: borrow or buy an impact air hammer wrench. It will make short work of any bolt (great for exhaust parts) and will "surprise" the mass so much you won't even need to lock it somehow. I recommend Ingersoll Rand 2135 TiMax, you can find em on eBay. That's what I have and it's amazing. If you ever do other car work with big bolts, it will be worth the buy as a time-saving investment.

[dladd]

i do have an air wrench, but I prefer to not use it unless I have to. It just seems so 'brute force'-ish... Plus, while it may help remove stuff, I'd still need a way to hold everything still on reassembly.

was able to use the motor mount strategically wedged into the pressure plate held with a large crescent wrench to hold the pressure plate from rotating while removing the bolts.

So far, everything looks great. I haven't found anything I need to replace yet. Even the clutch disc looks new. Which I guess isn't surprising since Dex said the clutch didn't work, so the disc essentially was used as a fixed coupler. There is a slight runout on the flywheel (which has the ring gear removed, btw), maybe .007" at the most (crude measurement with calipers), but I don't feel any vibration in the motor when spun up on 12v with just the flywheel attached. And there's zero wobble, nice and flat. I don't plan on removing the flywheel since that would potentially open up a whole can of worms regarding the coupler, and since the motor and everything looks fine I see no reason to anyway.

I've got a lot of degreasing to do (inside the bellhousing, and the outside of the whole trans) then it will be on to reassembly!

oh yeah, I peeked in the speed sensor port and the diff pin looks perfectly centered. No worries there!

[david85]

I don't think the diff pin comes loose unless you're doing something silly with the car although maybe I've just been lucky with mine. My flywheel also had some wobble and runout to it, but I had that all taken care of the last time it was apart. Maybe its a saturn thing but the truth is, a 4cyl vibrates a certain amount anyway, so whatever defects they had at the factory were probably never noticed in most cases.

I thought about suggesting an impact driver, but that is a bit harsh for such a small bolt.

[joshg678]

The Dif Pin issues is only parent if you are doing burn outs. If you burn one tire for to long, the Gears head up on the Pin and start to twist it, thus destroying the Roll Pin which allows the Diff pin to slide out into your trans case.

[TomA]

Originally Posted by david85

I don't think the diff pin comes loose unless you're doing something silly with the car although maybe I've just been lucky with mine.

The Dif Pin issues is only parent if you are doing burn outs.

Well, yes and no.

I have seen 4 cars with diff pin failures, and probably 100 without. 3 of the failures were 5 speed cars, one automatic. All had over 100,000 miles, but I've heard of failures as low as 60,000.

What actually works the pin loose is differential action, that is, loading and spinning the gears that are on the diff pin. If you never turn the front wheels, and never turn one tire faster than the other, the gears on the diff pin would never be turned in the carrier, stressing the roll pin that retains it, and the whole thing would stay in position forever. The likelihood that the pin will move is directly proportional to the amount of differential action (and stress) it is subjected to.

Spinning one tire is the worst thing you can do with the car. Second worst is driving on the temporary spare. That's probably what did in my '95 wagon 5 speed. 50 miles on that spare. (BTW, there is absolutely nothing in the Owner's manual about not running the spare on the front axle.) I know a road racer who puts serious stress on a stock gearbox, which hasn't failed in 4 seasons. He thinks its because he isn't using the diff much, rolling on power mostly with the wheels in a straight line, and never spinning one of them.

My gearbox actually broke at 1mph, pulling away from the curb up a steep hill, which is all differential action, and maximum stress on it given the gentle way my wife and I drove it.

Its something to think about, and once you crack a transmission open on the street, you think carefully about how you are stressing that lowly diff pin. Be careful not to spin the tires on snow and ice. No heavy torque applied with the wheels turned sharply. No burnouts. Same size tires always, with the same pressure side to side. So yes, abuse will drive out the diff pin, but so will other operational situations that are not really abusive. Its not really a luck thing- frequent, high-torque or sustained differential action WILL work the pin to failure, its just that such operation doesn't usually happen in most of the cars on the road.

The big problem is that these cars are now old, and in most cases you don't know how the transmissions have been treated the whole time, so its a bit of a crapshot. The best you can do is treat them right yourself, and keep your fingers crossed. Oh, yeah, and grab a low mileage spare if one crosses your path. They've gotten pricey, especially when you need one "right now..."

[dladd]

Got the motor/trans mated together last night, everything looks good! Did a quick 12v spin and it was nice and smooth. I also recived a box of parts from EVSource.com Motor blower kit and rear motor mount. It looks like their prefabbed mount will be pretty close right out of the box, so I decided to buy and modify it rather than have one built locally from scratch. I will still need to have the torsion mount made after it's all installed though.

No pics/video of the reassembly process, but nothing too exciting happened. You've seen one clutch you've seen them all!

I've got some cutting to do, and need to go buy a new blade for my jigsaw (I HATE losing tools!) before I can start. The garage could use a little organizing, cleaning, and sweeping before rolling the car back in as well. Not sure if I'll get to reinstalling the motor/trans today or not, we'll see how it goes.

[dladd]

any Saturn owners who are looking here, I have a question if you happen to know/remember... Is the center of the motor/engine in line between the two bolts for the upper passenger side motor mount? My motor was mounted that way, but it does not look right to me. To my eye, it seems like the center of the motor ought to be about 1" rearward from the centerline of the two upper bolts.

Am I making sense?

anyway, motor's back in the car, but I don't have the passenger side mounts re-done yet, cause I'm just not confident on where the motor ought to be...

Unfortunately, I sorta have to do something tonight (probably just a temp solution) so I can move the hoist that's currently holding the motor and roll the car all the way in the garage tonight!