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Finally after 6 months of looking at them in my garage my best friend (sucker) and I installed the GenuineSaab.com swaybar upgrade on my '00 V6 Wagon. Not really a fun job, but I learned a few things I thought I would pass along. These tips are of course specific to the V6 cars, the 4 cyl is a bit different underneath. I did have a few things helping in this, I have a 4 post lift, air tools, and my car spent five years of its life in Oklahoma so things come apart with not too much fuss.
Front bar (the hard one)
1. You don't need to do anything to the exhaust, it will flex enough to let you drop the subframe.
2. You can get at the swaybar clamps from above, you need about 2.5' of extensions and preferably a wobble socket rather than a universal. The universal was too floppy. Also helpful was to use a 1/4" drive socket and extensions instead of 3/8 on the rear bolts. If your car is from the Northeast - USE HEAT! As someone else on here found, these bolts are small, tight, and it is quite possible to shear them off.
3. You HAVE to take the rear motor mount cushion out. Support the engine with a lift bar or a jack, I have a lift bar but used a jack anyway since there is no built in lift hook (yet another Saab special tool needed). Make a mental note of which way it goes in, we spent 1/2 hour trying to get the bolts back in before realizing we had it 1/3 turn the wrong way.
4. The order to do things near as I can see is first, remove the center subframe bolts entirely, then thread them back in a 1/4" or so. Next remove the rear bolts entirely. Then loosen the front subframe bolts a bit.
Remove the two steering rack bolts.
Remove the engine cushion - you can't take it out of the car, just set it aside out of the way down there
Remove the swaybar clamp bolts and the link nuts - it helps a lot to be able to shove the steering rack around here.
Now you can fairly easily slide the swaybar UNDER the steering rack. We did not do this taking the old one out. That was a mistake, I have the squashed fingernail to prove it....
Lastly, when sliding the old one out and the new one in, jack up the A arm on the passenger side so that you can go straight in and out without hitting the brake rotor/backing plate.
Now the rear.
MUCH easier, didn't even take the wheels off. Who was the genius in Trollhattem who decide to put the nuts for the mounts on the side facing the body?? A Gearwrench is your friend here. But other than that, the only problem is you need to work the bar between the exhaust and the rear subframe to get it out of the car. Luckily there is JUST enough give in the exhaust mounts to get it past. Pay special attention to the correct orientation of the rear bar, or you will get to do this three times instead of two.... Oops. But that is about all there is to it, took 15 minutes to do the rear.
The front took us ~6 hours of working, screwing up, and head scratching. I am confident we could do it again in an hour or so. It is really a two person job.
The results are nice, the wagon is much less floaty and responds to the helm with a lot more precision. I can't wait to fling it around a couple on-ramps once it stops raining. :-) next project is Koni dampers and possibly Aero springs.
Kevin Rhodes
Westbrook, Maine
'00 9-5 SE V6t Wagon 'Wasaabi'
posted by 72.224.250...
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