From the time I bought the car it has always been difficult to get into reverse. Half the time it will engage no problem. The rest of the time it stops just short of going into reverse. In the past if you tried again, it would eventually get into reverse.
Recently though, it has outright refused to get into reverse to the point that I thought I was stuck. Thankfully after about 10 minutes of monkeying with the shifter it finally engaged. Still, that experience was scary and made me realize just how important reverse is, meaning it was time to get this issue sorted out.
My favorite saab forum group indicated it was probably the shift coupling, a metal and rubber part that isolates the shifter from vibrations in the transmission. I ordered a OEM replacement and went about replacing it. It took a couple hours, mainly because the part is located in an awkward location (behind the engine) and is equally difficult to access from the top or bottom of the engine. The entire part is held in place by one nut / bolt and one lock pin. In my case the bolt and nut came out no problem. The issue was lock pin, it would not budge. I tried being gental and pulling it out with my hand. Next I tried a vice to push it out. That failed so I resorted to a big hammer, which is a pretty dangerous maneuver considering that this part is behind the engine amongst hoses and wires, meaning I was only able to swing my hammer with my wrist.
After about 1 minute of letting my frustration out, the pin finally popped out. I used a dremel to cut off the part I damaged with the hammer and reused the rest on the new shift coupling.
The new coupling went in pretty quickly. I even took the time to properly align the shifter by locking the tranny in 4th, then adjusting the shift coupling until the shifter could also be locked in place.
After all that my reverse problem seems only marginally improved. I can get into reverse about every 4th time now. Clearly there is something else going on here, probably in the gear box. Oh well, at least I wont have to replace the shift coupling again while I own the car.
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