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Ian -- you CAN replace your pump with the engine in the car. It's a bit of a pain in the ass, but that's the way it's normally done. If you've got a good pump in there now, just leave it. Turn the pulley with your hand, and if it feels smooth, it's fine. If it grinds, feels "crunchy" or sticks and slips as you spin it, then replace it.
Geez, Chip -- I replaced my pump this summer, and I thought I wrote about it here? It was before I did all the SPG9 mods. BTW, I'm doing some now, and will post about them in the next day or so. (Beastie is disassembled in the Garage Mahal again!) Here's the water pump story:
The Beastie was making odd noises from the vicinity of the water pump and I started to notice the coolant reservoir was dropping below the MAX line. Checked my maintenance log, and sure enough, the pump had almost 70K on it. All the signs were there; time for a new one.
Previously I'd had a rip-off dealership replace my pump for me, and it was padded out to something like a $250 job. They charged $10 for a gallon of coolant and another $10 for a disposal fee for the old stuff! Plus something like $100 for the pump, and other rip-off prices for gaskets, "disposable supplies" (rags?!?), and their inflated labor charge. So this time, I decided to do it myself.
It ended up taking me a week.
I ordered a pump from a local discount parts place, which took 3 days to arrive. (This was BEFORE I started working on the car.) Also bought some silicone gasket stuff at the same time. Total cost, about $50. Oh, yes, and new coolant; I had some ready to go because it was almost time for the annual coolant change anyway. I decided to keep the old belts, which were still in good shape. (That turned out to be a mistake.)
I started by draining the coolant from both the radiator petcock and the block. Easy enough. I do that every year.
The Beastie is an '87 900T. There isn't much room back between the firewall and the engine. There are four belts, and the two which drive the water pump and alternator are, of course, closest to the engine, which means you have to get all four of them off to get to the pump belts. If you're not =replacing= the belts, you don't have to take off the outer ones. I think that's how the guys at the dealership do it. I ended up having to move my A/C compressor, so I took 'em all off anyway. Besides, (and I learned this the hard way!) if you're going to replace your pump, you should probably replace the belts, unless they're brand new, even if they look okay.
So the first thing is to take off the outermost belt, which goes to the air conditioner compressor. Standing on the right side of the engine bay, you'll see the A/C belt goes around a tensioner pulley. Find the tensioner mechanism, and if it's buried in grime, this might be a good time to spray some Gumout or other cleaner back there so you can see what you're doing. Now, all you need to do is unscrew the adjuster bolt to loosen the belt. Sounds easy, right?
Well, I couldn't get a socket and wratchet on the head of the bolt, due to clearance problems. The Saab mechs probably have some thinwall socket with a three foot flexible extension on it to make this easy, but I didn't. It's =not= so easy to loosen that tensioner if you have to use an open end wrench -- it becomes a tortuous endurance session as you turn the bolt about 1/8 turn, flip the wrench, turn it another 1/8, etc., ad nauseum. The tensioner bolt is about 3 inches long and takes about 2000 wrench flips to loosen. (I wasn't counting, but it seemed like that many.) There's barely room back there to move the tool, even if you have small hands. I later went out and bought one of those Squeeze Wrench tools you see advertised on TV. MUCH faster! It took me 15 minutes to loosen the adjuster by continually flipping my open end metric wrench, but only 1 minute to tighten it with the Squeeze Wrench the next day.
Anyway, get that tensioner loose, get the belt off, and then there's the next treat. Another one right below it, even harder to reach. That's the tensioner for the power steering pump belt. Joy. Mine was frozen, and I ended up removing the entire tensioner assembly, cleaning it, and struggling to refit it back to the engine. The bolts which hold it are almost inaccessible under the exhaust manifold. I killed a good hour and a half in this endeavor.
Some books and mechs say you don't need to move the A/C compressor to reach the water pump. It was in my way, so I ended up unbolting it from the mounting plate and lifting it (hoses and electrical wires all still attached) off to one side. Then I could see what I was doing with the pump. I say, move the thing. Unfortunately, the stupid mount that it bolts to is just about impossible to get off. I could loosen it, but not remove it. All I could do was get the compressor off the mounting plate.
Here's a tip I got from people on this board. DON'T loosen the belts on the water pump yet. Instead, while the belts hold the pulley secure, loosen the 4 pulley bolts on the water pump. The tensioner for the belts is the alternator -- you'll see it as you look down from the left side past the brake reservoir. Make sure you can loosen and move the alternator, but FIRST make sure you've loosened the 4 pump pulley bolts while the belts are still tight. You might have to use an assistant and several hands and tools to get that thing off if you do it in reverse order, like I did. Two of the bolts on mine were torqued on by a gorilla. By the time I got them off, I was exhausted, and called it a day.
The next day, I removed the belts and the water pump pulley, and with the A/C out of my way, I could actually get a socket and wratchet on the bolts holding the water pump. It came out pretty easily, and only a few drops of coolant dribbled from the hole it left. It was definitely bad; turning the impeller I could feel it grind and crunch inside. It did not turn smoothly at all.
Well, then came my next surprise -- the discount parts place had given me the wrong pump. I took it back and they said they'd reorder the right one -- another 3 days. I waited, and guess what? When I went to pick it up, carrying the bad one with me for comparison, it was =still= wrong. They'd ordered one for a 9000. (This was after shopping all over Jacksonville for a place that would even ORDER a Saab water pump.) I got a refund, did some online shopping, and then finally found an import parts place within driving distance that had the pump in stock (I had them describe it to me on the phone while I held the old one in my hand.) Convinced I finally had the right part, I went out and bought it. The Beastie had been disassembled for 5 days at this point!
On Day 6 I started bright and early. I put some blue RTV silicone gasket stuff on the new gasket, per instructions that came with the pump, made sure the mating surface on the car was clean and dry, and then bolted the new pump back in, carefully. Next mistake: I put the pulley on, then tried to get the belts on. I was prying for all I was worth against the alternator, crushing it against some hoses so that I could get enough slack on the belts to get them on with my wife's help. It took us half an hour of backbreaking effort to get both belts on. Later, I found out the secret -- don't put the pulley on until you have the belts in place! Then you don't have to try to slide both belts over the mounted pulley!
I adjusted the tensioner on the alternator, re-mounted the A/C compressor, re-installed and tensioned the powersteering pump belt, then re-installed the A/C belt. Put in coolant, bled it, did a tool count (All present and accounted for, SIR!), and started it up.
Things seemed okay, so I backed out of the driveway for a quick spin around the block. Got about two doors down when a horrendous squeal started coming from under the hood. I make a U-turn immediately, pulled back into my garage, and shut it down, with my wife standing wide-eyed by the deepsink giving me that "you messed it up, didn't you?" look.
I opened the hood, looked inside with the droplight, and discovered the innermost belt on the waterpump was a shredded mess. Somehow, I hadn't gotten it mounted right, and the two belts had somehow sawed through one another. Dang.
So this time, I had the mighty Squeeze Wrench, and it was easy turning the belt tensioners and removing the old belts. I kicked myself for not putting in new ones the first time. It was about another $40 for a full set at Pep Boys. I bought them, brought them home, and decided to go out and see a matinee with the wife.
So on Day 7, I installed the new belts. THIS time, I took off the water pump pulley, per someone's advice on here (Dan?) and then putting on the new belts was MUCH easier. You put the belts around the pulley, have your beautiful assistant push on the alternator to get you some slack, and then gingerly thread the 4 pulley bolts in to hold the pulley and belts in place. I was extra careful to note that each belt was properly seated and tensioned, especially observing the drive pulley down below, which drives all four belts.
This time, everything worked. Total cost was under $100, for coolant, the RIGHT pump, the gasket stuff, and four belts. Total time was one week.
Would I be stupid enough to ever do this again myself? ...Well, yeah. I was cussing while I did it, and much of the down time was awaiting parts or caused by my own stupidity and inexperience mounting the belts. But afterwards I was proud of myself. I don't think it will be anywhere near as hard the next time I do it. (Famous last words!)
Good luck, Chip. Hope this helps.
- = M = -
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