99 Windstar Knocking

The WS has 137 k on it and has an intermittent knocking noise that I have isolated to what I believe is an idler pulley just below the powersterring pump. Has anyone experienced this and or replaced? If so what involved to replace?

You can make sure the noise is coming from a serpentine driven accesory by taking the drivebelt off and running the engine for no more than 60 seconds (thanks to wiswind for the tip) if the noise goes away you have a bad pulley, if it doesn't you'll need to make further inspection.

About replacing the pulley, you need to take the drivebelt off, do it from underside the vehicle and with the wheels turned all the way to the right, use a socket and a ratchet to push the tensioner arm and relief the tension on the drivebelt, now take it out.

Use the socket and ratchet to remove the bolt holding the pulley to the tensioner arm, these are left-threaded so make sure you're not over-thigten it.

Also check the idler pulley.

Best regards,

Oscar.

So after trying to take of just the pulley and replace it..it apears Ford didn't leave enought room to get the bolt out of the hole beacuse of the subframe. I'm think of cuttinging it with a torch and putting a slighty smaller bolt in... Thoughts?

Is this the idler pulley or the tensioner pulley?
I had a '96, so I don't know how the '99 is laid out.
The tensioner pulley on my '96 did not have enough room to clear, so I had to remove the whole tensioner assembly to get the pulley bolt out.

I DID have enough room for the Idler pulley to clear.

I can get niether of them out becuse of no clerance. Argh

I did both without removing/cutting anything, just play a little with the bolt. Trust me they do come out with a bit of patience. Took about 30 minutes to replace both; just lean them sideways a bit, to do the tensioner pulley after you have unscrewed the bolt pull the pulley so it rests on the bolt, now lean both towards the front and they will come out.

Best regards,

Oscar.

Good fix..Thanks for your input