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Let's ALTERNATE! The photo above shows before and after my reconditioning work.
Though you can't tell unless you look very carefully, it also shows that one alternator
is for a two stroke Saab and one is for a V4, though both have the early cast aluminum fan.
Now look at the FINS on each fan from the back. Note that the fins angle in opposite directions. While both engines turn the same direction [clockwise as viewed from the front], remember that the V4 fan pulley is on the BALANCE SHAFT, so the alternator turns the opposite direction. It is also good to remember that an alternator doesn't give a shit which way it turns---it just produces alternating current [AC]. The "juice"
is then fed through a full wave rectifier whose output is direct current [DC], the stuff the car needs. Cool, huh?
This photo shows all the gubbins. Note that I turned the commutator slip rings on the armature [brass color] down smooth on my lathe. The brush pack is on the extreme left. This alternator is a later unit [tho all are 35 amp, 12 volt] that used the stamped steel fan with the fins angled the correct direction for the Ford/Saab V4.
Here are three alternators that I just reconditioned. Left--late V4. Center--V4, sort of early, with aluminum fan. Note the arrow on the fan, indicating direction of rotation. The alternator on the right is a VERY early V4, also with a cast aluminum fan. So what is the difference between the one in the center and the one on the right?
The difference is in the electrical connections on the back. The one on the left and the one in the center use the 3-connector plug, plus a heavier B+ wire, plus a ground wire. The alternator on the right uses four separate connections, plus ground. All were used on Saabs, in various years, and all are 35 amp, 12 volt alternators.
I actually reconditioned six of the buggers, this session, but these three show the main differences that you might encounter. The most IMPORTANT thing to remember is that an alternator must have the correct fan. The arrow--either cast into the aluminum fan face, or stamped into several of the fins on a stamped steel fan--must indicate a counter-clockwise rotation for a V4. A cast aluminum fan for a two cycle Saab will have the cast-in arrow showing a clockwise rotation. Don't mix 'em up or you'll get to replace a burned-up alternator, and that's no fun...huh?
Saab V4 flywheels are, at the youngest, 40 years old and virtually ALL of them must have their pressure surface [see drawing, above] lightly machined to remove damage from clutch slippage or chatter. A critical dimension of 0.660" from the pressure surface to the pressure plate mounting surface must be maintained. If this distance is NOT maintained, the aft surface of the release plate [the hexagonal flat plate in the center of the pressure plate [see photo, below] will not be in the correct fore/aft position. That surface must be 0.125" to 0.140" aft of the three flat pressure plate surfaces [the ones with two big holes, each--see photo below]. If not, the clutch will NOT release, and the release bearing arms will strike the surface of those same three flat pressure plate surfaces. NOT good.
This customer's machinist had machined the pressure surface and the pressure plate mount surface allright, but the measured distance was 0.670", not 0.660", which allowed the hexagonal release arm plate to sit forward too far, down in between the 3 flat plates [the ones with two big holes, each]. Although the clutch disc and the pressure plate were both new, the clutch would NOT release and the release bearing arms hit the pressure plate. The customer sent the whole schmere to me for correction.
There are two solutions: 1] Machine the flywheel to get the critical dimension to 0.660", or 2] Shim the flywheel. This is a shimmed flywheel/clutch/pressure plate assembly.
I used a special tool in my shop press, disassembled the new pressure plate and added 0.030" valve spring shims under each of the six coil springs in the pressure plate. This was to compensate for the shim 0.024" plates [in red, in the photo] that I fitted under the pressure plate mount bolts. The 0.024" shim plates moved the pressure plate so the release bearing plate was in the correct position--0.125" aft of the three flat plates. HOWEVER, adding the 0.024" shim plates takes too much mechanical clamping action off the clutch disc and the clutch will slip. The 0.030" valve spring shims restore the mechanical clamping action [and adds just a touch more than stock], so the clutch works just fine and the releases properly.
Interesting "fix" for improper machining.
I completely reconditioned this Saab Sonett transmission and kept it as a spare for my last Sonett. Then I got soft in the head and sold the Sonett, and the new owner didn't think he needed a spare transmission. I discussed using it for a coffee table mount with my wife, which turned out to be a short discussion. So it is available for someone who needs it for his/her Sonett.
The trans has new bearings, seals, gaskets and a number of other internal parts. You can see the new clutch release bearing and rebuilt release arm in this photo. I made all the internal adjustments to Saab spec's. The freewheel has been "neutered", using one of my neuter kits. Its READY TO GO! But I still think it would make an interesting coffee table....
If you're interested, give me a growl.
This is a really good book that tells you everything associated with the transmission in your V4--and for that matter, 2-stroke Saab, how to maintain it all, and how to replace parts when that is necessary. 
Like all my books, I wrote it for the owner/wrench, to take away a lot of the mystery about all that stuff jammed way in the back of the engine bay. The exploded view drawing below shows just a few of the bits that are covered in detail in the book. You'll see how to change the clutch and pressure plate, the transmission seals, the rear transmission mount and how to rebuild the clutch release arm and much, much more.
I show you in nitty-gritty detail how to change the axle boot seals, and in the process, show you how the assemblies go together, what lubricants to use, what adjustments to make and many of the tools you need to do a lot of this work. The drawing below shows the inner axle driver [on the right], the axle shaft [on the left] and the universal cups on the "T" driver [center]. This drawing is typical of the dozens of drawings you'll find in the book. Specifications and dimensions are included where that will be of some help to you when you are skinning your knuckles on this stuff. 
I show you the shifting mechanisms of each of the cars. The drawing below is for the shift "tower" used in Sonett III cars, which I describe in some detail, including how to change its bushings when that is needed, and how to modify the tower to help preserve the transmission itself. I even show you what you have to do to change over a column shift Sonett V4 to the floor shift Sonett III mechanism.
This is not an overhaul manual for the transmission itself. You are NOT going to do that anyhow, unless you have the factory transmission manual, the factory press, a couple dozen very special factory tools and a good bit of experience doing this work. The book IS an excellent guide about repair and maintenance of everything associated with the transmission, and I include a lot of information about how to extend the life of the 'box in your Saab. If you are interested in this--or any of my books--contact me at jacksonashcraft@gmail.com. Keep On Saabin!
My How-To book on the V4 engine was written for the owner-wrench. I take you by your little finger and walk you through the process of rebuilding one of these little engines. All the factory spec's are there as well as a LOT of information that was NEVER in any shop manual. I cover special tools, some of which you can build, cooling systems, carburetion, exhaust systems and much more.
I went to the trouble to make a TON of clear drawings to show you exactly what's going on inside the little Ford engine. including a sequence of drawings that show you exactly how to do a valve adjustment correctly. "Oh that's easy!" somebody says. OK, smart guy. point out where the number three exhaust valve is located in the drawing below. If you aren't sure, you need the book.
The drawing above, like many others in this 96 page book, is accompanied by explanatory text. The book is a good read, even if you don't ever mash a knuckle working on your own engine. 
This drawing, from page 37 of the book, shows you every gasket in the engine. Another full page has drawings of every BOLT in the engine, and tells you the size of each bolt and where it goes.
The book is full of this kind of information, which I included, based on my 40+ years experience rebuilding these little buggers, so you could rebuild your engine right--the first time.
Some years ago I was road testing--at a good rate of speed--a Sonett III with one of my high performance engines. I had taped my radar detector to the top of the instrument panel and was making "good speed" on a local winding road. As I rounded a bumpy curve at a speed some 20 mph too fast, I hit a serious bump. Simultaneously, the engine shut off, the radar detector went ON, and the headliner came down around my ears. Talk about an adrenalin spike!
Clearly, it was time for a new headliner. I decided that trying to glue another vinyl headliner in place was a fool's errand. I used a foam-backed CLOTH headliner and it worked so well that I offered them as KITS to Sonett III owners. The cloth headliners absorb sound, rather than reflect it, they look really good and best of all--they stay UP THERE! I sold dozens of the kits over the years and I still do.
The kit includes the new top material [pattern cut for good fit], new trim panels for above the doors, a can of excellent spray-on contact cement, a special scraping tool to get all the old crud off the top, and an eight page instruction booklet. If your headliner is down around your ears, contact me and I'll tell you more. You never know what will happen when you're going too fast on a bumpy road!
VDO speedometers are pretty trouble-free, for the most part. However the ODOMETER portion gets tired after while and in order put them into good fettle once again, they have to come apart. This isn't a real easy thing to do, assuming you don't want that nice chrome bezel all boogered up.
This is the anti-booger tool that I designed and built. It clamps the speedo just right, and the handle [with a wedge tool attached to the speedo end] peels the chrome bezel off, slick as a whistle, without damaging the bezel. SLICK!
I have to take off the speedo needle in order to get the number face off, in order to take the speedo apart to get to the odometer bits that go South. The needle is fragile. I'm using a little puller tool that I built--to pull the needle without doing a booger job on it, either. Gentle is the name of the game when working with speedometers!
Voila! the face is off and I have the front half of the speedo in my left hand. I've set aside the rear portion of the unit. I'm pointing to a plastic gear that is in the chain of gears that drives the odometer [and the trip meter as well]. Unfortunately, this easy-to-get-to plastic gear is NOT the one that gives up the ship in these speedometers. ARRRGGGHHH! 
See that little brass gear? That little sucker isn't the one that goes tango uniform, either. But it has to be pulled to get to the bad one. The bad one is the GREY pot metal gear just to the right of the numbers register that is on the bottom in this photo, between the last register and the speedo frame. I built the little puller I'm holding. That little sucker pulls that wee brass gear quite nicely. THEN...I can take the numbers drums out, get the bad Grey gear [called an "advancer"], replace it and chuck it all back together. Fun times!
I hate to re-create wheels. So I spent time drawing [in rather a lot of detail] exploded views of all the gubbins in these speedometers. Makes the process of disassembly, cleaning, repair, oiling and reassembly a whole lot easier. So if your odometer refuses to odo, I can make it all better once again, because, see...I speak speedometer...HA!
I've been repairing these VDO speedos for some years now. I don't see them as some sort of mysterious device that can only be repaired after a lot of money has changed hands. Give me a shout--let's talk about what it takes to fix the VDO speedo in your wee Saab.
I regularly have a need to bend pieces of sheet steel or aluminum, or strap of either persuasion. A small brake was in order, so....I built one. The component parts are shown here. 
There are three pieces of 1.75" x 1.75" x 0.200" steel angle, some 0.200" thick pieces of plate [at the ends of two of the angles], a couple of 0.50" diameter "J" bolts, a 6.0" piece of 0.75" O.D. pipe, and two 7/16" bolts with nylock nuts.
Here it is, assembled, with a piece of 18 gauge sheet steel set in place, ready to be bent. [The light colored piece in the middle of the brake is the steel to be bent]. The aft, LOWER angle is mounted in my bench vise. The aft UPPER angle holds the piece to be bent into place by tightening the nuts on the welded-in-place bolts on either end. So now it is just a matter....
...of lifting the handle to bend the piece of steel sheet. The brake will accept metal up to 12.5" wide,
and will easily bend aluminum sheet up to 0.125" thick and steel sheet up to 16 gauge. It will also bend steel strap up to 0.125" thick and 2.0" wide.
The angle of the photo isn't great, but it does show the piece of 18 gauge bent to about 45 degrees. At this point, I simply loosen the two nuts on the aft TOP angle and slide the bent piece forward, out of the brake. As they say in the translated instructions, "Welding, some drilling and cut is to be required." Followed by three equally well translated paragraphs on how not to kill yourself with your welder, your drill press or your hack saw.
At any rate, this is an easy to build, and very useful little tool that takes up very little storage space for the 98% of the time you won't need it. And it works like a champ for that 2% of the time when you DO need it.
You are looking at the front of another customer's Saab V4 transmission, mounted in my factory transmission press. The gear with the large teeth is the pinion gear. Above and to the left of that gear is a screwed-up input shaft hub. Inside that hub is the freewheel unit. The pulley-looking thing sticking out of the hub is whats called a "dog clutch" gear. Someone with probably good intentions had welded on half washers to hold the dog clutch engaged, rendering the freewheel inoperative, or as we call it,"neutered". 
The problem with this neutering method is that it throws the main shaft out of balance, and makes it impossible to ever revert to freewheeling again. This is really not a good way to neuter the freewheel.
Here is the main shaft after I removed it from the transmission. You can clearly see the dog clutch piece dangling from the freewheel hub of the main shaft. Hmmmm.....what to do to save the expensive main shaft and dog clutch....hmmmm....
I put the sucker in my lathe and began to cut off the half washers, by cutting through the welds. This is the cutter set-up on the carriage fixture on my lathe. I have made the first cut in this picture.
This is the second and final lathe set-up. The cut has gone through the welds and is into the half washers. My hope--at this point--was that the welding had not screwed up the freewheel hub. If it had, the mainshaft was junk.
VOILA! The cut is completed. The owner got lucky. The main shaft, the dog clutch and even the freewheel parts inside the hub were all still good. All I had to do from this point was to use the lathe cutter to clean up the end of the freewheel hub.
The point of this? There is a right way and many wrong ways to do something. This was one of the wrong ways that I managed to correct. I WILL neuter the freewheel, but do it the right way, so nothing is out of balance, and should the owner [or subsequent owner] ever get soft in the head and want to make the freewheel function again, he [or they] can do so.
Bosch distributors, as used in Saabs with V4 engines, get old, tired and sloppy. [I've known some mechanics like that, too...]. Bosch didn't bother to put bushings at the BOTTOM of the distributor body, so over time and a lot of miles, the aluminum distributor body gets "hogged out". When that happens, the ignition point gap varies as the engine runs, the dwell changes, and the basic engine timing changes. And the engine runs like crap.
Here is my setup in that pretty blue lathe again, to machine out the bottom of the distributor body so I can install a bushing. I built a precision tool [mounted in the lathe chuck in this photo] to hold the distributor body on its exact center line. The precision lathe bit [shown in the steady chuck at the bottom of the photo] does not move. The chuck in the lathe rotates the distributor body as the steady chuck advances the bit through the body, machining the correct diameter hole as it goes. 
Here I am using a larger bit in my big, commercial drill press to do a light chamfer in the freshly machined hole. This will allow the bushing to start into the distributor body easier.
I use a bolt that is machined to JUST slightly smaller than the diameter of the new bushing to guide the bushing into the distributor body. The bolt is long enough to fit through the bushing on the TOP end of the distributor body, so the bolt forms a perfect guide as I press the bushing into place. The bushing is an interference [plus] fit into the distributor body. 
I use an adjustable reamer to open up the bushing to an inside diameter equal to the diameter of the distributor lower shaft, plus 0.003". I always HAND ream, and never attempt to speed up the reaming process as some might by putting the reamer in a hand drill. I ream a little, then test fit the shaft, and repeat the process until it is just right. When I'm finished with one of these Bosch distributors, it doesn't know it isn't young, vibrant and ready to go for thousands of miles once again.
You are looking at the CHUCK end of my lathe. The piece in the lathe is the stator from a customer's alternator. The brass colored thingies are called "slip rings". The brushes in the alternator rub continuously against these slip rings and after about a jillion miles, wear grooves in the slip rings. Using this lathe set-up, I carefully cut the slip rings to a smooth surface without the grooves.
This doesn't have a darn thing to do with exhaust systems or donuts, but the lathe is a pretty color, yes? Well....
The deal with a lathe is to make a number of VERY light cuts. Getting heavy handed here can gouge [and ruin] the slip ring. That makes junk out of the whole alternator stator. Not good. A lathe is a great tool, when you know how to use it correctly.
NOW we can talk about exhaust systems and "donuts". On a Saab/Ford V4 engine, the donut fits against the exhaust manifold gasket. I open up the exhaust PORTS to gasket size, so the donut has to be opened up to an inside diameter just a wee bit larger than the gasket. This is the lathe set-up, showing the donut mounted in a special holding tool that I built. Once again, I make a number of light cuts until I get the inside diameter that I want. You can see a previously cut donut laying on the lathe platform [yellow painted area], right behind the lathe carriage.
You are looking at the RIGHT side of a freshly rebuilt, high performance Saab V4 engine. I'm holding the opened-up donut in my left hand, and the end of an exhaust header pipe and pipe securing flange in my right. You can see that the dount is actually larger--by quite a bit--than the header pipe. This engine will get larger diameter header pipes, part of a big bore high performance exhaust system.
Well, this engine is done and ready to drop into the customer's car. It is an over-bored 1700cc Saab V4 that will produce around 115 horsepower. With the proper COOLING SYSTEM this engine will run at 6000 rpm for as long as the owner has the road and the courage to drive it that way.
This little screamer has a big 2 bbl Weber carb, a high torque cam, big valves, big ports, a light flywheel, and is fully balanced to race engine spec's. Saab-o-files will note the lack of a fan pulley on the front cover. Horsepower, guys, equals HEAT, and this sucker will have a BIG radiator with two electric fans.
From the back, you can see the light flywheel, the rebuilt, recalibrated, recurved distributor, and get a peek at the back side of the Weber carburetor. I spend a lot of time modiflying, measuring, fitting all the engine parts and carefully tightening every bolt and nut to the correct torque spec's on my engines. I build every engine as if I intended to use it in one of my own cars. And...YA SURE! I LIKE TO GO FAST!
The rearmost bottom corners of a Sonett III hood assembly is normally held in place with a bolt. The tilt hood on the Electric Norseman makes that sort of fix just a tad unhandy. My fix is a set of inclined pins--one on each side of the car--welded to the square steel inner hood reinforcement. Each pin--as the hood is lowered and latched at the back, slips over a horizontal pin bolted to the frame. When the hood is latched down, the lower corners of the hood just snug up to the frame of the car, so it all lines up and doesn't flop around.
I got in a bitch of a position to take this under-fender photo, but you can clearly see the inclined pin. As the hood goes DOWN, the pin draws the hood IN, against the frame of the car. I made the bracket--that is bolted to the frame--adjustable, so it is entirely possible to get it "just right".
Two drawings in one....the main drawing shows the tilt hood partly open. No. 2 [in both drawings] is the square steel reinforcement frame inside the 'glass hood skin. You can see where the inclined pin is welded to that frame, and how, when the hood is closed, the pin slides right over the second pin on the strap bolted to the frame of the car.
In the smaller drawing on the right, No. 1 is the fiberglass skin of the car, No. 2 is the square steel reinforcing frame, and No. 3 shows how the fiberglass hood skin is sucked right in against the frame of the car. Thus "gestopping der flopping." Simple fixes are almost always the best.
