Allright, my friend's mom's been driving a saturn wagon forever, and the trans finally died (100k miles)

She bought a 99 passat (very nice car), and is giving the saturn to her son, provided he fix's is by febuary or so...

He cant afford to have a transmission shop do it ($1600 drop off/pick up when done) or have them rebuild/update it($1000)

He's got a lead on a used transmission (with warentee), for $300... I might help him pay for it, but it's not a big deal...


The car runs good, and is in decent shape... New tires recently, body's in ok shape (few skuffs, but nothing major) good car besides the trans
Neither of us have done a trans before. We dont have the book for it, but I doubt it will cover what we need. So, I'm asking on this forum (and a few others) if anybody can help...

It still drives, but it leaks fluid about as fast as you can put it in, and makes really bad noises... It whines in nutral, grinds/thunks into drive, and (if it decided to) goes into reverse, but slips horriably. Transmission fluid was changed at 50k, but it smells burn to a crisp... Soooo...

So far, we've put it onto ramps/jackstands, and taken out the battery, intake, airbox, and disconnected a few sensors on the transmission (we labled them all, and took uber pics) We then could no longer move our hands (10-20 degrees out), and quit for the day...

Can anybody help us as far as what to do? We're planning on dropping it out the bottom, and we've got some questions on what all to D/C

There's 5 bolts that connect the engine to the trans, and a mount (that we can get at)

I assume that the CV's need to come off, but neither of us know how to do that.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

tks alot
~Nate

__________________
95 Honda Shadow ACE 1100.
1999 Plymouth Neon Expresso. 2.4 swap, 10.5 to 1 comp, big cams. Autocross time attack vehicle!
2012 Escape, 'hunter" (5 sp 4cyl)

Nate, I could be wrong, but I think you might want to support the engine from above so it doesn't hang down when you remove the transaxle, because the transaxle helps hold the combination engine/transaxle in the car.

I cut and pasted this from some random site, I don;t know if this affects the year Saturn you have, but it might be the cause of your problem:

CONDITION:
Some automatic transaxles may have harsh and/or erratic shifts, no gear or gear stuck on, and the malfunction indicator lamp (MIL) (SERVICE ENGINE SOON telltale lamp) may come on, and multiple diagnostic trouble codes (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 75, and 78) may be stored in the PCM/TC.

CAUSE:
Some automatic transaxles may have been manufactured with iron sediment that migrates to the control valve body assembly causing transaxle control actuator valves to seize and or the valves in the control valve assembly to stick or be sluggish to move.

GM recommends everything from flushing the transmission to transmission replacement to correct this problem. There is really nothing you can do to test for this condition.

You will also have to remove the cv axles. Not a big deal, but you will need a larke socket to remove the nut from the end of each axle where it passes through the hub/brake rotor. The actual removal depends on the car, but on most cars you have to loosen strut from the hub, or something else in order to gain the space to pull the stub of the outer cv joint out of the hub.

Please be careful when under the car and when removing the wheels and cv axles. I used some really cheap jackstands once, and the car fell off when they collapsed.