Clutch talk

[DeLorean]

no idea, but if you find one, let me know where you did cause we gave up looking and are just going to swap the gear drive trans with a chain drive 4 speed (which has a conventional shaft seal that won't leak).

[GRMPer]

Ok, I'm confused (it happens easily) What do I have?, how can I tell? and what are the advantages/disadvantages of either?

thanks!

[Luke]

What they are talking about is the front primary drives. There are two types: chain and gear.
In '78 saab switched to the chain drive front which resulted in less gearbox noise and less power loss. There are also many different sprocket combinations available which allows the gearing to be lowered or raised. The chains are known to occasionally break (pretty rare). I've never heard of a gear drive front breaking but it could just be they were used on lower HP cars.
Then there is also two types of slave cylinders as you noticed. The std fork type and the later annual one. The new annular slave debuted in '76. The annular one is much better as you don't have to worry about the bending of the clutch fork and it's self adjusting.

You have the gear drive primaries with the annular slave cylinder.

[paulh]

hmm yeah, these 99s are weird, i'm still learning i suppose :lol:

Paul

[DeLorean]

have you ever seen one of the early clutch forks bend? It appears to be made out of cast iron, I'd hate to think what it would take to bend that Also, about the only instance in which I can recall seeing the front chains break also involved a lock up or major failure somewhere else in the trans. There seem to be a whole lot of things that let go well before the primary drive chains do, at least from what I have seen.

so do the annular slave cyl 99's still use the clutch shaft O-ring like the ones with the clutch forks? If this is the case, a new one should definitely be installed along with the new clutch to prevent leaks... with a bad O-ring on pauls in about 20 miles of driving the new clutch had gear oil ALL over it.

[Luke]

Well they dont really bend but more flex around the pivot. They also break in half, I have a broken one in my shop. I think the seal is the same with either type of slave on a gear drive front, but not sure on that one. As to the axle question in the other post, the 75+ axles are totally different, length, splines, everything.

[99Super]

One aside when discussing the annular slaves. The LPR manufactured slaves (I get mine at IPS) are ever so slightly shorter than the OEM units and you CAN get the PP and disc past the slave w/out unbolting it(Still needs compressed). I replace every OEM slave w/ one of these whenever I'm into a clutch.

john

[SaabsBreakDown]

one thing worth mentioning:

you can compres the spring plate by jacking the car up with it, for changing spacers or whatever.

So put the jack under the spring plate. Now lift the car. Usually it just works out, sometimes you have to jump on the car.

[DeLorean]

wait, isn't this how everyone installs the spacer into the a new clutch?

[Jordan]

Oh man, I was just squeezing really hard with my hands the whole time!

[theoneGroo]

a flat plate (steel, aluminum, wood) with a hole drilled in the center, a 4 inch piece of threaded rod, a fixed nut on one end, an old throwout bearing some big washers, another nut and you have a very nice tool for gently compressing the pressure plate (once removed from the car) to make installing and removing the special tool easy on you and the fingers of the pressure plate... if only i had a picture to upload....

[Crazyswede]

John,

I found out that you can get a new shaft for the gearset I have of yours right now which allows you to convert to a chain drive box and still use the 4th gear from the gear drive box. Josh Teresco picked one up from Scanwest for about $25.

[SaabsBreakDown]

Oh man, I was just squeezing really hard with my hands the whole time!

Luke said use a press. I was just giving an alternative, that I had to use once at a friends house and it worked great.