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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Saturn Car input shaft nut tightening procedure

Saturn Shaft NUT Loose

The procedure to tighten the loose nut is as follows:
If its worn out nut,then replace the nut.


First Jack up your car and take off the left wheel:

Satrun input shaft nut loose
11. Locate the end cover and remove the many bolts holding it in place:

Make sure that at this point you have the drain pan under your tranny ready to accept the ATF that's about to pour out as you go to the next step.

12. Now comes the tricky part. You have undone the bolts, pry the end cover with a flat head screwdriver. However, the tubes protruding from the end cover won't let you take it off all the way because the frame is in the way. You have two options:

Option 1: Grind off the frame! A ghetto solution, but will give you instant access to the insides of your slushbox:

The downside is, well, grinding your frame.
Option 2:Its time consuming,but is more safer then grind of the frame.
Instead of cutting into the frame like that and possibly weakening the car and compromising the crumple zones' effectiveness, I'd just get creative with a floor jack and remove the lower trans mount. you'd get much more clearance that way to get that end cover off. and if you needed even more room, you could lower the whole engine cradle just on the driver's side. those engine cradle bolts are quite long so that'd give you lots of room then.
13. Once you have removed the obstruction, take off the end cover. Be very careful and don't bend the tubes protruding from it:

If you bend those tubes, it will be tough to put the cover back on.

14. You will see two shafts. To your left is the input shaft with the nut recessed into the 1st gear clutch pack. To the right is the output shaft:


You will notice both shafts probably have plenty of play. Mine had SO MUCH that it actually GRINDED AGAINST THE COVER leaving bad-ass GROOVES on it:

You can clearly see the grooves caused by the grinding around the left metal pipe on the end cover. Most of that seemed to have not caused any permanent damage, however.

15. Use the 23mm socket and torque the input shaft nut to 111 lbs. You can immobilize the shaft by sticking a phillips screwdriver into one of the holes on the side of the 1st gear clutch pack and wedging it against the output shaft gear.

16. Use the 30mm socket to torque the output shaft nut to 111 lbs.

17. Put the new gasket on, put on the cover, put everything back together. You are DONE

Check your reverse - you will be surprised. Your tranny should work like new!
That's it. Let the PCM re-learn the shifting patterns for about 30 miles.

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