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One of the belt pulleys on my '99 9-5 2.3LPT (94K miles) was screaming, so I decided to replace it (and the belt) today. I used the instructions posted on this bulletin board but ran into some difficulty that precluded me from replacing two of the pulleys and that may be specific to my car's year.
To replace the belt:
1) drive the car onto ramps
2) remove the bottom plastic covering that runs under the engine and into the wheelwell. There are six hex headed screws, 4 of them are 8mm, one was a torx, and the one in the wheelwell was 10mm.
3) place a flat topped jack under the oil pan, and put a block of wood between it and the oil pan. Then jack it up just enough until you see the engine shift upwards ever so slightly.
4) remove the big engine bracket on the right side of the engine. This requires the removal of four 16mm (5/8") bolts, a small 10mm bolt holding a bracket, and a 18mm nut holding the bracket to the engine mount.
5) remove the air intake hose that runs between the air mass meter and the intake at the front of the engine. What I did was simply remove the hose from the intake pipe, then tie it out of the way. That way I didn't have to disturb the air mass meter.
6) place a 1/2" drive extension (I had to use an extension placed on the end of a breaker bar in order to get the length I needed) into the square hole on the tensioner and pull toward the front of the car. Put a nail or small hex key into the hole to the rear of the tensioner. This takes the tension off the belt.
You can now remove the belt. To put on the new belt, consult the belt routing diagram in the owner's manual.
Instead of just putting on a new belt, however, I rolled the pulleys to see which one was making noise.
There are three pulleys to test and/or replace:
1) a stationary corner pulley above the tensioner pulley and closer to the firewall
2) the tensioner pulley
3) an intermediate pulley under and to the front of the tensioner pulley
Of these three pulleys, it was the top corner pulley that was really making a lot of noise. It was crunching away when I rolled it. I'm surprised it went 94K miles. (The intermediate pulley was also not rolling very well, but here frustration at a unservicable design kicked in, as noted below).
The corner pulley is held on by a 13 mm bolt. It was easily loosened. Be sure to catch the two washers holding on the pulley (one on each side). I put on a new corner pulley with ease.
Unfortunately, the tensioner and intermediate pulleys are held on by recessed head hex *key* bolts. IOW, the head of the bolt has a cutout for a hex key to be placed into it. The problem is that there is barely a 1/2" between the head of the bolt and the side wall of the engine compartment. I couldn't fit a regular hex key into it (not enough room) nor a socket, and went as far as cutting a hex key to about 1/4" and trying to fit that in, to no avail. Saab must have a special tool to fit into this very narrow space. I'd be happy to hear of any ideas on how to get a tool into this very tight space to remove the bolt.
Note that this is on a '99 9-5. Later models may have a different setup. If the tensioner and intermediate pulleys had been held on with regular bolts, it would have been easy to replace them. Thankfully, the only pulley in really bad shape was the corner pulley held on with a real bolt.
posted by 171.75.69...
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