Please help with idler pulley on 97 Taurus 3.0

[rastoma]

The idler pulley locked up and ate into the surrounding housing about a 1/4".

I just bought the car and I'm not that mechanical, but I'm fairly capable.

I removed the pulley and I bought a replacement. When I bolt the pulley back on, even just tightening by hand, the pulley becomes frozen because of the bearing not being free. It looks like there should be a spacer behind the pulley but it didn't have one when I removed it.

There is some kind of washer on the back that I thought was used to 'space' the pulley, but even the slightest torque in tightening the bolt, it just screws into that washer until it presses against the bearing and same result, the pulley won't turn.

Surely this pulley doesn't stay on finger tight.

The dealer says there is no spacer, but what keeps this pulley from pressing against the housing as it's tightened so that it spins freely.

[rhandwor]

I'm not sure on a ford but the dayco replacement for a chevy says remove the dust cover on the front of the pulley. Try this Auto Zone and Advanced Auto sell a new Dayco tensioner and idler pulley for around $29.00 for a 3.1 liter Chevy. Look on the back of the box for instructions it should tell you what to do. They may also have given you the wrong pulley common problem.
Aftermarket are made slightly different the replacement tensioner takes a longer bolt which comes in the box.

[rastoma]

Thank you for the reply.

This is just the idler pulley, it's not the tensioner. There is a separate tensioner.

This pulley looks just like the old one (except the aftermarket one is plastic), but it's the same size and includes nothing else but just the pulley. When I bolted it on, as mentioned above, if I tighten it more than finger tight the pulley won't turn.

btw, the engine is a 3.0 v6 standard fi, not DOHC.

[Colt Hero]

My pulley started making noise a couple of days before it completely locked up and destroyed my serpentine belt.

I ended up buying just the bearing and re-using my original pulley because AutoZone only sold plastic replacements (which I refused to install), and the only metal one I found (at Napa) looked slightly slimmer to me and I didn't trust it. If you just bang out the bearing in the center, you can press in a new one for $5. I bought the bearing at a CarQuest that happened to have a machine shop and they pressed it in for me for free.

After tightening the bolt (I think there is a torque specification for that), my pulley DID stick a bit. It definitely wouldn't spin freely, but since I had bought the car new and I was sure everything was original, I concluded that it would free up over time - and I guess it has because it's been on there now for a year or so with no problems.