The SC2 felt much improved with just the minimal maintenance I had l already performed on it. I was actually surprised about how quiet the car was. Maybe it is just too much time driving around the noisy GSi. The SC2 really seemed to remind me most of my 1989 Lincoln Continental—more luxury car than anything else.
I went ahead and ordered a set of KYB GR-2 struts for SC2, though its existing struts felt fine. Supposedly the front GR-2s are valved slight stiffer than the OEM stuts, and the GR-2s are gas charged, while the OEM struts are not. Anyway the new struts sat in their boxes for a month or so. Sometime after getting the wagon I rented a spring compressor from Autozone and went to work on installing the SC2 struts.
I began pulling off the rear interior to get to the rear struts. I discovered I had pulled out the rear seat cushion backwards when I had installed the middle seat belt. The front edge should be lifted first and then the rear. Removing the rear interior panels below the window made me realize just how cheaply these things were made. I was hoping the rear parcel shelf was removable as the previous owner had butchered the metal around the rear speakers, but it is welded. This shelf ties directly to the strut towers making a rear strut tower brace superfluous on the Saturn coupes and sedans.
With the interior apart removing the struts is simply a matter of loosening the three upper mounting nuts and removing the two lower bolts. The spring compressor was surprisingly simple to use. The OEM struts have a large Torx head on the shaft. I made do with a allen wrench and I soon had the entire strut assembly apart. I cleaned all the parts, lightly sanded some surface rust on the springs and mounts, and gave those a coat of rust converter primer.
After a couple hours I resembled the old parts on the new KYB struts and had them back in position on the car. I reused all the old strut bolts and nuts except the shaft nut that came with the GR-2s. The KYBs had a hex socket on the shaft the same size as the allen I had used on the stock struts. I finished the front struts the next day.
The big difference on the front struts is the top mounts. I had replaced the front strut mounts on my Storm the year before. The Saturn front strut mounts have a separate serviceable bearing. Of course I really learned this after twisting the mount off and having ball bearings scatter all over the garage floor. I think we found all the balls. I repacked them with a little grease before putting the front struts together.
I didn’t realign the SC2 immediately after getting the new struts on it. I did make sure the front and rear mounts were as far to the center of the car as possible by prying at them with a pry bar while tightening the top nuts down. Two of the mounting holes for the front mounts are elongated and allow some small adjustment of camber and caster. The GR-2s also have elongated lower struts holes that allow some camber adjustment. I hear the factory service manual specifies elongating these holes that makes these struts allowable for SCCA Solo Stock competition.
My plan was to take the SC2 for a professional 4 wheel alignment mainly to set the rear thrust angle, but I wanted to get the smaller diameter front sway bar and polyurethane sway bar bushings on it first. I also wanted to check out the other suspension bushings and replace any rotten ones with new rubber bushings. I ended doing something a little different but probably better in the end.