Glacier Blue 9-5 Aero Wagon Project

[9Kwrecker]

I am now extremely tempted to finally install the one I had painted for my wagon a few years ago, I kinda forgot how much better it looks with a spoiler.

I kinda think those RKs look awesome in that shade, I still say I like that shade of metallic silver better than the choice I made on the powder coat on mine.

[Troup]

Originally Posted by 9Kwrecker

I am now extremely tempted to finally install the one I had painted for my wagon a few years ago, I kinda forgot how much better it looks with a spoiler.

I kinda think those RKs look awesome in that shade, I still say I like that shade of metallic silver better than the choice I made on the powder coat on mine.

You should do it. Not super hard. Totally worth it. I'm a sucker for factory spoilers. I ended up using Saab bolts that I had laying around to mount it. I don't know if the spoiler was tapped when I got it, or if the body shop tapped them (The bolt holes had some type of material built up in them and couldn't tell),but it was a metric size that's used in a lot of Saab applications.

hahah, you should repaint your wheels if you like these better. Or we can trade it you want

[9Kwrecker]

Originally Posted by Troup

You should do it. Not super hard. Totally worth it. I'm a sucker for factory spoilers. I ended up using Saab bolts that I had laying around to mount it. I don't know if the spoiler was tapped when I got it, or if the body shop tapped them (The bolt holes had some type of material built up in them and couldn't tell),but it was a metric size that's used in a lot of Saab applications.

hahah, you should repaint your wheels if you like these better. Or we can trade it you want

The knockoff spoiler I have for my black wagon is tapped if I recall. It also has tape pads on it, but one of them needs to be heated up and replaced because the shop that painted it got paint all over the adhesive because they peeled the backing back to hang it for paint.

On the wheels you might have had me if yours were RK1s lol

[Troup]

I took the wagon out to visit the 92 9000 yesterday. All recent repairs seem to be holding up well, no boost or coolant leaks. Subframe bushings are still really bad and distract from the driving experience, so that's next on the list. I picked up a subframe from the junkyard a couple weeks back to replace the existing rusty one. It cleaned up well with some elbow grease and the pressure washer.

I can't get over how much better this car looks.














A Saab friend picked up an OEM cargo mat from the junkyard for me for $10. It looks great! Just needs to flatten out a bit

[tuner4life]

That thing is really looking nice! The color is growing on me..

[9Kwrecker]

Looking at these pics really has me wondering how much difference there is between ice blue and glacier blue. I'm sure they're different but they look awfully close going by these pics and looking at my new ice blue 9-3 out the window at the same time.

[Troup]

Originally Posted by tuner4life

That thing is really looking nice! The color is growing on me..

I've always liked the color, but I probably wouldn't have ever gotten it for myself. I'll admit, it's definitely growing on me as well. The color is so much more rich looking with the proper hood on it.

[Troup]

Originally Posted by 9Kwrecker

Looking at these pics really has me wondering how much difference there is between ice blue and glacier blue. I'm sure they're different but they look awfully close going by these pics and looking at my new ice blue 9-3 out the window at the same time.

Yeah, agreed. I really thought yours was glacier blue when you showed me a picture

[Troup]

I wrapped up a bunch of work on the wagon this past week. I got the new subframe and polyurethane subframe bushings installed. When I dropped the subframe, I found that the lower rear motor mount, the lower transmission mount, as well as both sway bar bushings were trashed. I went ahead and took care of all of that. Luckily I happened to have a Powerflex transmission bushing on hand.


Since I had some time while waiting on the other parts and the subframe was already dropped, I thought now was as good a time as any to drop the pan. The pan wasn't abnormally sludgey (a little bit over the exhaust), but it did have some coffee ground looking gunk in it. I cleaned everything really well, replaced the three seals in the pick up and crossover tube, and am going to run Royal Purple for a couple oil changes to try and clean everything up in there.

I also spent a great deal of time cleaning the engine and engine bay from underneath using Simple Green, a pressure washer, and some brake parts cleaner.

Still a long way to go, but so much better than it was before.

For anyone interested in the differences among Powerflex and Propart's subframe bushings, I can't necessarily speak to their longevity differences, but I will say that the Propart's ones seem to be much stiffer and were more challenging to install than the Powerflex ones that I installed on my other Espresso Black 9-5 wagon. The car still has vibration issues at idle, but I'm willing to bet that I need to finish replacing the upper motor and transmission mount before I can blame that on stiff subframe bushings.

Some before pictures:











Five of the six subframe bushings were removable by hand. It's a myth that only the rear subframe bushings go bad on the 9-5's.



The plate that secures the rear subframe bushing. This one was so bad that it was allowing metal on metal contact back there.

[Troup]

And After:







When dropping the downpipe, of course I had a problem stud that ended up stripping out which required I drop the exhaust housing to extract. I ended up replacing all 7 studs on the turbo exhaust housing with stainless studs and copper nuts.

[Troup]

After doing the subframe bushings, the car had less vibration, but it was still pretty bad. I decided to get the last 2 upper motor mounts from a black friday sale. The passenger side one arrived first and I threw it on. Much better. I didn't realize that all of the hydraulic fluid had leaked out of the existing one. I thought that was a power steering leak

[Troup]

The door handles have had some weird fading / chipping on them since I've got the car that look like barnacles on a boat. I got a set from the junkyard that were in better shape. They look 100x better in my opinion. I couldn't ignore it. hahah.

The old ones:



New ones:



We also swapped out the door panels for ones that were gray with black inserts as opposed to gray on gray. It looks great with the solid black dash and black carpeting.

[Troup]

Took some indulgent night shots tonight

[Troup]

Finished up the last motor mount today and put on a Genuine Saab oil cap that I got on black friday as well. (the previous pictures were with the polished oil cap from my other wagon). Zero regrets on pulling the trigger on doing all of the mounts. This one was shot as bad as the other 3 were and came completely apart once I got it off the car. This car has transformed in the past couple of months and is so much fun to drive finally.