Made some good progress this weekend, she's all buttoned up (for now). I was able to change a balance shaft tensioner guide, the balance shaft tensioner, and the balance shaft tensioner arm. In addition, a few other things were replaced - the crankshaft seal (that's in the timing cover - a 1 1/4" socket helped seat it perfectly), the water pump inspection seal, it got a new crank pulley bolt, and a new serpentine belt (although the old one looked fine). I torqued the new crankshaft bolt to spec (74 lb-ft plus 75 degrees), which required the use of the tool I created in an earlier post, a 4' breaker bar, and two 13" extensions. Thankfully, I had all these things from my work with several Honda J-Series timing belts.
As much fun as it was to pull the serpentine belt tensioner out, it was even worse putting it back. As someone on here mentioned, the clearance between the serpentine belt tensioner and the firewall is basically non-existent. Thankfully, I had purchased a Gearwrench Ratching Serptenine Belt tool kit, I wouldn't have gotten the old belt off without it! What ended up working was having my son lightly pry against the motor mount bracket from the inner wheel well, and that created just enough space to move the tensioner into place (with the bolt inside of it). Of couse, when I started it up, I heard the serpentine belt tensioner making some noise, so a new one is ordered and I'll get to do it all over again.
As expected, there wasn't much left of the balance shaft tensioner arm, this is a very common failure point with these Ecotec 2.0L motors. Between what I had fished out of the oil pan when I did the level sensor and what was left, I removed a complete tensioner arm. The tensioner itself had some significant wear on it as well. I may go in at some point and do the timing belt and water pump, and if I do, I'll replace the balance shaft chain and the one remaining tensioner I couldn't get to without removing the timing chain. These were the two videos I referred to the most when doing the work: video 1 and video 2.
Since I spent a good chunk of the weekend looking at the problematic plastic T coolant fitting, I ordered the new part from eSaabparts.com which includes the metal pipe and the two hoses (not the hose that is the output from the turbo). I'm planning to do an oil change after a few miles, and then I'll replace the coolant T, and the serpentine belt tensioner once those parts come in. At that point I still have a bit of a punch list, but I think I will have dealt with most of the critical motor-related items and can do more of a rolling restoration. It'll need new headlights (the reflective trim is gone on the low beams so they're literally useless), then new struts and springs (I have all of those parts already). At that point, I want to change the intake gasket and PCV valve, add an ECU spacer to promote more airflow around it, and change the valve cover gasket. And it'll need new tires before long, but I'm waiting until after I do the front struts and springs. I also hear an occasional rattle from the driver's side rear when I go over bumps, so I want to check out the shock mounts (common wear item) and rear shocks at that time. So still plenty to keep me busy, but the oil level sensor and this balance shaft tensioner and arm were stressing me, so I feel better now that they've been replaced.
After I warmed the car up to check for leaks, I took it for a short drive. I like the car a lot, but I've only put about 80 miles on the car since I purchased it last August (including the 35 mile trip home when I purchased it). So I'm hoping to change that once I complete the next round of work.