Well my 1988 Saab 9000 turbo is at its 200k servce, so its time for a new gearbox and seals alround, and a turbo a bit later.
well ive never done a gearbox before, let alone an East West front wheel drive, of even a Saab for that matter. so i did some reading but there isnt too much around, most of these cars are owned by Rich ppl, so they have mechanics that fix them (eg: this car was bought in 1989 for $88,500).
well i thought that if i can get a mechanic to do it cheap then yeah... save the hassel, but no.... everyone wanted al least 800 to start the job. then could end up around the 2k mark, i thought geeebus....
well that left one option, me. well i didnt think that the car would have to come apart soooo much.
i had to take the whole left suspension out, wishbone, sway bars, front left quater of the chasis!!.
to undo the torque converter i had to reach under the intake manifold and take the starter motor out and reach through this little hole to undo the 3 bolts that hold it to the flywheel. there is not room... so it took me about 600 clicks with the rachet. lol...
well pretty much had to drop the left side of the engine, and take the gearbox out throught the front left wheel arch.
im no mechanic, but i figured it out... lol...
well i now know why no one wants to touch them, but also they cant be much harder than anyother East West front wheel drive??
Next i rekkon i should put a 2.3L Turbo with a manual conversion.... hhmmm
yeah... i would have to agree, but to do the conversion would have cost me about $300 xtra for the whole conversion kit, to a 5 speed manual.
the xtra work would have had to add the clutch / hydrolic, fly wheel and bell housing, and shifter and console, so wasnt tooo much more hassel... but sometimes you need to mod the ECU due to the trans etc..
but over all i just seemed too much to worry about and didnt want to cut the fire wall change cables, speedo etc. anywayz auto's are heaps quicker... muhaa.... see my turbo had only 1 blow off, and thats when you take your foot of! just manual's are fun,
but ive got a reconstructed arm from my car accident in Dec. so maual's tend to hurt after a while.
This is why later model cars and E-W engines suck arse. I wouldn't bother changing to manual like you said, cause you will have to get engineering certs for everything.No one will touch them because they aren't exactly a common car, so theres probably a bunch of reasons which could include: a) they've never seen one before, b) they know the BS it entails, c) they know that if anything is stuffed, it will take them all week to find the right part. Theres probably many more, but it is a bit harder than say my EW engined barina I used to own (suzuki swift model). Compared to what you did, mine was a pretty simple job.
ah i dont rekkon the newer cars suck, it just this car has been engineered not just built, mine's not so new nemore tho. altho you dont need eng cert's to change it to a manual, but the ECU is an issue, but i rekkon that ppl are just too lazy to touch them,
i spoke to one dude that was with Active Automatics, and he said 300 - 400 for a change over, straight in and out. (which it is easy but just one step at a time, this is my first trans ever) then when i asked him to do it he said that he wanted 800 to start the job. then i quoted him what he said before, then he started sayin that if i wanted it done straight away then i would have to pay top dollar. when the trans wasnt due for a week. so he ended up getting all cufuffled and i just had to end the convo there.
i thinks its on the Lazy Scale, but parts arent that hard to come by, they are just as easy to get things for as a holden, ford, toyota. it can be here via over night freight.
if you ever need Euro car parts, BMW SAAB Merc, the best ppl to talk to are ASV Euro Spare Parts. over night, and if you nice they send it for free (i got my trans here for nothin). we have gotten parts for our BMW and both Saab's we've got.