With no questions to answer this month, I thought I would share an interesting story. 

Have you ever been putting off a big job, expecting it to be difficult, only to be pleasantly surprised at how simple it is? I have had this happen to me. I have also had what should be very simple job turn out to be a nightmare. I recently had what should have been a simple job turn out to be a much bigger job. 

In August I lost the clutch in one of my Saab 900s. This car was from Southern California. It has never seen salt, and rarely saw rain. It is a fun car to work on. Nothing is rusted or frozen. 

Now, on a Saab 900 the engine is bolted on top of the transmission, and the whole assembly is mounted backwards in the car. The clutch is on the back of the engine, which is up front by the radiator. I have done a complete clutch job in about an hour. It is a relatively quick and simple job. 

I realized the problem with the Saab clutch was the master cylinder. I ordered a new one and attempted to install it. It is a traditional master cylinder attached to the firewall with two studs. I was just finishing the installation when one of the studs broke off. I was just tightening the nuts on the studs when the wrench came loose. I had just begun to snug the nut, I hadn’t even begun to apply much tightening force. I removed the part to find that the ear, the stud was threaded into, actually broke off. It was a defective casting. Ok. No big deal. I obtained a replacement and installed it. 

When I drove the car to work the next day I noticed the cruise control no longer worked. Somehow while working under the dash I broke the cruise control. On the way hone, I lost the clutch again. A quick inspection revealed the hydraulic hose between the master and the slave burst. Ok, not a big deal. I replaced the hose. As I was bleeding the clutch, the slave cylinder blew. To replace the slave cylinder the entire clutch assembly needs to be removed. When I removed the clutch assembly, I noticed the rear main seal on the engine, and the pilot shaft seal on the transmission were leaking, the clutch had oil on it, and the pilot bearing was seized. I ordered a complete clutch kit, and new seals. I resurfaced the flywheel while it was apart, and installed the new seals and the new pilot bushing. 

I had a bear of a time installing the new clutch, it just did not fit. I couldn’t align the pressure plate quite right to install the bolts, and the pilot shaft just would not fit in the clutch disk. After wrestling with it for over two hours, and cutting my hands several times, I realized I had the wrong parts. They were boxed wrong. I had ordered the right parts, but the parts supplier gave me the wrong parts. After a conversation with the parts supplier I received the correct parts, and again attempted to install the clutch. I had it almost installed, when I realized one of the dowel pins fell out of the flywheel. I had to take the assembly apart to get the pin out of the bell housing. After reassembly I was installing the slave cylinder bolts when one of them stripped. I could not understand how it stripped, as I never snugged the bolt. Again, the whole assembly had to come apart to fix the stripped threads. I realized someone had installed the wrong bolts at some point, these bolts were too short, and one was cross threaded. 

The project is almost done. Hopefully I just have to bleed the clutch and finish putting it back together. Should be done this weekend, almost four months later…