Free Saturn

When gas goes back up to over $4/gal this summer you won't hate getting 40+ mpg in that thing ;)

I wasn't kidding, I would love a Manual!

you will like the SL2...it is a great car. (decent performer in H Stock when the Minis don't show up)

miata= summer car saturn= beater winter car

but a friend is getting rid of a mini cooper s soon....

but on the actual clutch replacement. i dont want to remove the engine. I want ot do this in car.

Am i asking for trouble?

pinchvalve wrote: In my experience, a FREE car means a $1000 car to get it on the road, minimum.

I got a free car from another member advertised here in the $200X classifieds. Only thing keeping it from driving was a bad ignition switch and previous driver (his brother). We ended up putting about $150 into it to get it all up to snuff...my brother drove it for a few months before it started knocking a little louder on startup. He sold it for twice what we had into it, including title fees, and it bought him enough time to sell his other vehicle to get some cash and fix another beater he picked up.

I could tell you free car stories all day. My family has had about a dozen of them over the years. If you count <$200 cars, it'd probably add another dozen. Free cars are fun in that you can profit off them pretty easy, but also in bringing something back to life that might have been parted out and/or scrapped if somebody else got to them first...I like bringing them back from the dead, and half the time it just needs a simple fix and some TLC.

Bryce

Well my brothers clutch or someting gave out. Im replacing the broke stuff with unbroke parts...this week.

I had to take out the engine and tranny and it was ok but not the best way to go if you ask me..so i asked around a bit.

I talked to a local Saturn guy. Runs a Saturn only shop.

He told me you can unbolt the front sub-frame and misc stuff holding the engine in and drop the cradle/engine/tranny out the bottom. Said it takes him 4 hours for a clutch doing it like that.

Im leaning towards trying this. (borthers car is a 2001 and not very rusty underneath at all)

Thoughts? does this sound like trouble?

Keep it. I guarantee you cannot kill that car unless you drain the oil and check if the rev limiter works in 1st gear.

I did the "replace the clutch with the engine and trans still in the car" method. It was a pain, there's very little room to work when you have to push the trans into the wheel well (so little that I had to cut the clutch alignment tool in half because it was too long to fit between the trans and the pressure plate), plus when you're under the car there's a transmission perilously balanced above your head...quite unnerving. You have to deal with unbolting the one strut (not terrible) and the axles (terrible). Plus the trans hates the engine, it took me three hours of wrangling to get the two to mate back up. It is entirely possible that dropping the whole subframe (engine, trans, axles, hubs/knuckles, struts) would be easier. And more spacious.

Where are you located? There's a Saturn-only shop kinda close to me...if it ends up that we're not that far away, I'd be glad to help with a clutch change.

In reply to CarKid1989: The best way to replace the clutch in the Saturn. Place the car on stands. Then support the engine from above, with a support fixture or a engine hoist. There will be two brackets allready on the engine for this. Remove the lower balljoint nuts, remove the steering rack bolts from the cradle, leave the rack in the car. Remove the exhaust down pipe.Support the radiator with a bungie. Then remove the engine cradle. Remove the coil pack from the front of the trans. From there it is strait forward to remove the trans. Note, the struts & streeing rack stay in the car. Separate the lower balljoint from the knuckle. This way no alignment is needed. But be sure to reinstall the cradle the way it came out. If you look up in the front of the cradle there are alignment holes in the cradle & the frame rails. Check before removing & put it back the same.

The Saturn Twincam cars are great, but make sure it does not have timing chain noise. Even if it does it is a easy repair. As stated above CHECK THE OIL WEEKLY. They will use some oil & this destroys the timing chain. The radiator end tanks like to crack on cars over 100k. So look at this also. The good thing is parts are cheap & the cars are very reliable with just normal maint. Hope this helps.

ended up my brothers car snapped a half shaft. thats all. weird