Belt Tensioner 2002 4.6 | Ford Explorer Forums

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Belt Tensioner 2002 4.6

Partsman109

Legion of Doom
Joined
January 12, 2010
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City, State
Westerly, RI
Year, Model & Trim Level
2018 F150 SuperCrew 4x4
The tensioner pulley on my wife's 2002 4.6 started making noise the other day, and when I looked under the hood I could see it wobbling with the engine running.
I called a friend at NAPA and was happy to find out that the pulley can be serviced separately...part number 38006

Fast forward to I got it installed and everything put back together, start it up and it's rubbing the front timing cover(?) making a nasty racket. I mean rubbing good, pretty much gouging the cover. So I loosened the three bolts for the tensioner and inserted some spacers roughly 3/16ths thick between the back of the tensioner bolt holes and the mounting bosses.
It's perfect now, just seems odd that I would need to space the tensioner out...or maybe the NAPA pulley was made just a tad too wide.
 



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Is there a spacer on that pulley? I recall some cars have a spacer that can slide into the pulley from the front or back, but have to slide in from the back to space it out. Otherwise the new pulley could have been boxed wrong, or they pulled the wrong part number off the shelf. This happens to me every now and again at Napa and Oreilly.
 






You're right, anything is possible.

No spacer on the pulley...a spacer for the pulley would not even fit.
 






The pulley is not grooved, so if it were off it would usually pitch the belt before pulling it in that close. Are you sure that the belt is properly routed around all of the grooved pulleys?
 






Belt is routed correctly...kind of a pain with it's length, and I didn't know that the tensioner had to be unbolted to install it.
 






Belt is routed correctly...kind of a pain with it's length, and I didn't know that the tensioner had to be unbolted to install it.

The tensioner does not need to be unbolted to install the belt...the serpentine setup is designed to add/remove a belt simply by unloading the tensioner. Look partway down my thread here for some pictures that should help:
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=294228

Also go down to "part 7" for how to reinstall the belt easily.
 






There was absolutely no room between the tensioner pulley and the front cover to pull that belt out or get the new one in.
Probably only fit a playing card in between there with the old pulley...and not even that with the new pulley until I put the spacers behind the tensioner itself.

Thanks for your posts!
 






I took my fan loose to change my belt, but other than that I had no trouble getting it in there.
 






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