In a message dated Wed, 04 Sep 2002 18:15:36 +0000, tr3a@att.net writes:
>Mark,
>
>FYI - The 99 and 900's were longitudinal mounted, not
>transverse, front drivers.
Personally, I think they should have been vertically mounted...as in the entire
car dropped nose-first into a deep hole. :-)
Seriously, I like my 99 a lot, but it was a horribly expensive car to maintain
(and I used to run Volvos, for goodness sake).
Seems to me it was really only the early 99 motors that bore more than passing
resemblance to the TR7 motor. Triumph actually built the early 1.85(?) motors
for Saab. Supposedly, Saab wasn't ecstatic about the build quality of those. By
the mid-1970s (around 1973, maybe), Saab had taken over building the engine.
They enlarged it, and they also did some modification and redesign (too bad the
water pump wasn't one of the things they redesigned).
Of course, mjb is correct in noting that it runs backward. It's also mounted
back-to-front (which makes it impossible to pull a camshaft or jackshaft with
the engine "in situ", and please don't ask me how I know), and it has that
hideously complicated clutch/power transfer gearset mounted on the back, er,
front, and the gearbox is where the oil pan would be on a real engine, and....
I'd go for a V-8. ;-)
--Andy Mace
|