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The only symptom of a bad pulley would be noise from the pulley while spinning. Don't plan on being able to hear it with the engine running. Do plan on replacing the upper-most pulley when you change the belt at 60,000 miles. I replaced all three pulleys at 105,000 miles and the upper-most pulley had a distinctive clicking sound when spinning it on my finger; I am confident it would not have lasted until my next scheduled belt change at 120,000 miles. The new pulley was completely silent.
Tools necessary to change out the belt:
ramps (optional, but very handy)
floor jack and block of scrap 2x6 or similar
12-inch long x 1/2 -inch drive socket extension, (or 12-inch long piece of 1/2-inch square steel bar)
Torque wrench
variety of metric and SAE sockets - deep sockets or have a short extension too
Picture of belt routing, http://www.thesaabsite.com has this on-line
Steps necessary:
1) Drive car onto ramps if you have them
2) Lift hood and remove engine cover, the plastic shroud surrounding the oil fill/dip stick. It just clips to a flange under the fill cover.
3) Slide under car and remove the plastic lower engine shroud. There are 5 screws total which holds this on, four are under the car and one is in the right front wheel well. You can reach around the tire to remove this screw.
4) Place floor jack under the engine with wood block on lifting pad. Lift jack against the oil pan until it is snug and car just starts to rise.
5) Remove smallest bolt on right engine mounting yoke. This one holds a hose clip in place.
6) Remove 4 blots on engine yoke which bolt into engine block. These will be retightened to 40 ft-lbs on reassembly.
7) Remove the singe large bolt which connects the engine yoke to the vibration mount/fender. This will be retightened to 80 ft-lbs on reassembly. You may need a breaker bar to get this one loose.
8) Insert end of socket extension into square boss on best tensioner and pull towards front of car to remove tension. There will be a small hole in body of tensioner into which you can insert a 3mm mex key or small nail to keep tensioner locked when pulled to full tension-off position.
9) Remove old belt
10) Remove old top-most pulley and install new one. There is a single bolt which holds this on and no published torque requirement for reassembly. Make it tight, remembering you are bolting into aluminum and not steel or cast iron.
11) Install new belt using photo or picture of belt routing as guide. One person above and one below makes this go faster.
12) Perform steps 1 to 8 in reverse order, noting torque requirements for engine mounting bolts.
Have fun. The other two pulleys are more difficult to change and have not been a reported source of problems. If you do decide to do all three, the steps become:
10) Remove old top-most pulley
11) Remove belt tensioner, a 8mm hex key is needed to remove tensioner assembly from engine. Single bolt is dead center on tensioner.
12) Remove old center pulley. This bolt will be tight against "frame rail" when fully retracted.
13) Install new center pulley by first covering sub-frame under car with shop towels over all openings where parts could drop in, then placing inner washer on engine boss. Place outer washer and bolt through pulley hole, then use two pieces of duct tape criss-crossed across pulley face to secure bolt in place. DO NOT wrap tape around pulley or you will not be able to remove tape later!!! With great patience and care, visually line up pulley bolt with threaded boss and use pulley assembly like a hand wheel to tighten bolt. Lining up the bolt with boss and threading it on took me 30 minutes. but could conceiveably be done in as little as one minute. Remember to use great patience and care. Cross-threading at this point could be disastrous! Remove duct tape with needle nose pliers.
14) Install new tensioner pulley on tensioner assembly. Requires a 6mm hex key for single center bolt on pulley.
15) Re-install tensioner assembly on engine.
16) Install new top-most pulley on engine (see old step 10)
17) Go to old step 11 and continue with reasembly.
2000 lpt
110,000 miles
posted by 68.42.114...
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