Pretty sure I just bought the last 21001232 (rear trans) gasket in the U.S.

[JustChrisThanks]

Hey all, I have a 98 SW2, and I'm thinking about swapping out the 5th gear from my crashed 97 SL. Searched high and low for the 21001232 gasket mentioned in ShawnV's writeup from 2011, but it's been discontinued and seemed impossible to find. Even reached out to ShawnV to see if he had any lying around, since he was selling the gears and gasket to folks for while, but no luck. Had prettymuch given up, but found one site, oemcats I think, that claimed it was in stock at a dealership in Illinois. Called and spoke with the parts department, guy was nice but could tell he was annoyed, apparently that site is a spam site, and he gets like 50 calls a day for parts that site claims he has.

But, he put the part number in his system, and said he might have just made my day. Gave me a number for a guy in Massachusetts, called him up, sounds like the guy who's been running his own shop for 30+ years, perfect, and sure enough, he still had one of them sitting on a shelf in the back after all these years. I told him about my search and how it sounded to me like I might have found the last one, he laughed and then got quiet, I guess he looked it up in his computer, because then he said "oh wow, yeah, it looks like this is the last one listed on here in the nation".

So, that being said, is there a way I can preserve this for others? I mean, I wanna use it, but at the very least I was thinking about making a photocopy, or buying gasket paper and using it as a template maybe? Reach out to FEL-PRO or some other gasket company and see if they have interest in making them? Can't imagine they would as the demand would be so low....I feel like saturn parts are inevitably going to get harder and harder to find, and I have a unique opportunity to help preserve a small piece of their history...otoh, when I reached out to ShawnV, he did mention I can use RTV instead of a gasket and it should be fine, so it might not really matter they much at all.

Thoughts?

[bumpdraft]

People will just have to cut their own gasket from a sheet of gasket material.
Is there a critical dimension that needs the gasket thickness? Evidently, Shawn V says, “no”.

[TomM96]

When I recently spoke with a tranny rebuilder about my TAAT...
he noted that the output shaft nuts are no longer available, and
muttered (barely audible) they're discontinuing them.

When I bought a top 'pan' cover gasket for my TAAT last December, the NAPA
counterperson reported, 'there's only one left in our system, in Tennessee'.

[JustChrisThanks]

Originally Posted by TomM96

When I recently spoke with a tranny rebuilder about my TAAT...
he noted that the output shaft nuts are no longer available, and
muttered (barely audible) they're discontinuing them.

When I bought a top 'pan' cover gasket for my TAAT last December, the NAPA
counterperson reported, 'there's only one left in our system, in Tennessee'.

I've heard for years this is/was going to be an issue, but it seems like the wells are finally running dry. I think getting stuff from junkyards will be an option for years to come, but can't pull a gasket from the junkyard.

[TomM96]

> wells are finally running dry

Yes. A Lot of the stuff can be found here or there (an input shaft nut
could be fabricated on a lathe) but the cost skyrockets, and convenience
disappears. The TAAT pan gasket is mostly conductive aluminum, with a
molded Oring outer edge; that would be tough to emulate ... but the
fastenings might provide adequate grounding.

[fetchitfido]

For the photo, something high-rez (default on modern phones), probably set to "macro" rather than standard photo and 2 rulers (1 each along the X and Y axis). Resizing of photo's can happen even when folks don't realize it, the rulers should allow people to get it "stretched" back to proper size.

[JustChrisThanks]

Originally Posted by fetchitfido

For the photo, something high-rez (default on modern phones), probably set to "macro" rather than standard photo and 2 rulers (1 each along the X and Y axis). Resizing of photo's can happen even when folks don't realize it, the rulers should allow people to get it "stretched" back to proper size.

I like the sound of that, thank you

[JustChrisThanks]

Going to do the 5th gear swap tomorrow, so I finally got around to taking a photo of the gasket, just wanted to get my hands on some kind of graph paper first. Unfortunately it won't let me upload a hi-rez pic, hopefully this will be helpful to anyone needing to make their own!

[Waiex191]

I think I made mine, using the cover as a template. We could scan it and make it on a cricut machine now.

[megabyte405]

That's why I bought my cricut (well that and it was on super sale). Years later, we've made lots of tshirts and gifts, and approximately 1 gasket

[cgg17]

I have a few NOS ones I can scan on my xerox along with a ruler to scale if needed.