Replacing a serpentine fan belt tension pulley in 2001 Ford AU Falcon Futura with minimum fuss, This may also apply to some other models with an automatic belt tensioner.

First take off the air intake cowling to get some visual access – just two philips head screws. To release the tension in the serpentine belt, use a 3/8” ratchet drive straight into the 3/8” square tensioner release socket at the bottom of the assembly (see photo). Tape up the first extension arm (see photo) so you can actually find the square socket and keep the ratchet there. I used two ½” drive extensions as a lever arm. Set the ratchet to tightening and place it so that the arm is about 30 degrees left of vertical. Grab some rope and run it through the right top radiator bracket. (see photo). Stand on the right of the car and pull on the extended arm (ratchet + 2 x ½” drive extenders) and tie it up with the rope (see photo) so the tensioner is fully tensioned to the limit. The 3/8” ratchet seems to be able to take the torque OK. You can see the belt go slack.

The serpentine belt should then come easily off the alternator pulley (bottom left). You can even get it off the lower tensioner pulley afterwards by twisting it a little sideways. Anyway once the belt is off a pulley or two you can release the rope and then remove the tensioner assembly. This easy tension release method can also be used to just replace the serpentine belt.

To remove the tensioner assembly the handbook says remove about half the front of the car. That’s because two of the attachment bolts are strategically placed to present a slight difficulty of access. Fun and games by the design engineers. No worries though - if you’ve been living in outback Australia that’s not even a consideration. Note however that even just replacing the serpentine fanbelt without “Special Ford Tool Number So and So” can be a problem for some people, again thanks to brilliant design (NOT).

So if you want to replace the tension pulley assembly with minimum fuss, grab a 3/8” (10 mm) ratchet with a 3/8” to ¼” drive conversion running into a 10mm socket (that’s how these sets come – see photo). This arrangement JUST gets to the most difficult bolt at the bottom right of the pulley assembly, and even then at a slight angle. A normal 10 mm socket with a ½” drive won’t fit because the engineers decided that nobody in his right mind would think of using such a simple arrangement. A normal 10 mm socket with a ½” bent, not socket, drive (see photo) will however access the second most difficult bolt on the left, difficult only because there’s not much room between it and the front assembly. When replacing make sure the bolt is in the tensioner assembly before placement – it won’t go in after. The top right bolt is no problem. To install simply reverse the process. Oh I nearly forgot – If you want to save some time tape up another socket on the end of the ¼ drive (see photo) so you can screw that difficult bottom bolt in by hand most of the way. The photo also shows a thin bit of bamboo to listen to engine, pulley and other noises with. If none of the above works you’ll just have to ring up and get the car helicoptered to the nearest Approved Ford Superior Service Centre. I wonder what Henry Ford would have thought about all the new engineering? Did they have planned obsolescence in those days?