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In this video, we're going to show you how to replace a serpentine belt on this 2003 Mercury Mountaineer with the 4.6-liter V8 engine. It's the same part and similar process on these Mountaineers from 2002 to 2005.The items you'll need for this is a new serpentine belt from 1AAuto.com, 1/2" socket bar or 1/2" ratchet and pipe, and a long screwdriver.
The easiest way to get to your tensioner is from underneath. It's right up here. You just take 1/2" ratchet and push it in to that square hole on your tensioner, and using a pipe for extra leverage makes this a lot easier. Then, you just pull back, and release the tension on the belt, and you can pull it free from this pulley. When you release the tension on the ratchet, you actually have to take the fan and make sure it doesn't get caught on the wrong side of the handle and then pull your ratchet out. I'm going to reach down and pull the belt off of the pulley where we already loosened it up, and then, you can pull this up and out. You just have to be careful not to get it caught on the fan too much. Then, I'm going to reach way down on this side, and I'm going to put my hand in there like that. I can feel the belt, and I can pull it up off of the pulley that's down here, which if you look on the diagram, I'm pulling it off of this pulley here, and while I'm pulling it off of that pulley, I'm going to pull up on the belt, because you have to basically pull it right in between this space here. I'm just guiding it up through there. Now, still the only place it's on here is the big crank pulley. Again, I'm just reaching down and I just have a hold of the belt right here, and I'm pulling it out away from the engine to try and get it off of the crank pulley. If I could reach down in here, I could pull it out from the crank pulley and pull it out from the water pump and then just pull the whole thing up and out.
To re-install your new belt, what you want to do is put a loop down around the crank first and get it lined up on your water pump. Then, you basically have to jam a loop right down in between your tensioner down to this pulley and then you can line everything else up.
First, we'll take it and put the loop down between the fan and the water pump pulley for the crank. It's almost like your lassoing the crank a little bit, but you reach way down in there and grab the belt with your other hand and flip it around the crank. I'm going underneath this pulley here. You can see the belt right there. I just got to get it pushed on the crank and guide it with my hand and pull it up and around. It's on the crank. Now, the backside that comes up . the belt that comes up from this side of the crank, you can push in and push it around your water pump pulley and push this loop. You can just push this loop down onto that side for right now. We're not going to worry about it too much. The harder part is taking this part of the belt right here. Once you have it down around the crank and pull it up, you just want to take . you probably can't see my fingers, but I'm just pushing it between the idler pulley and the pulley underneath. Just take a long screwdriver and push it right down through there. Now, if you want to reach out from the bottom and grab that belt and pull it through and put it down around you're A/C compressor here. Now, from up here, I'm just going to pull that tight around that A/C compressor pulley. I can reach. I'm reaching down with this hand and making sure it's on there correctly. Then, I can put this . this has to go down now around this idler pulley and push it down, and it's somewhat ready to go around these two pulleys here.
Basically, I've got my belt. I put it first down around the crank pulley, and then, I went down around the A/C pulley. Now, it's on the alternator. It's underneath this idler pulley, and when I pull my tensioner, I'll put it around these two pulleys the rest of the way. Just make a quick check to see if it's on the crank correctly. It's not really on this A/C pulley correctly, so I'm going to lightly pull on it and get around there correctly. After I do that, I'm going to reach up in here and pull on the belt a little more. That will tighten it up.
I'm going to use a flexible bar. Basically what you want to try to do is slide the bar up in there and just try to feed it in. You'll have to push out against the fan as you're feeding this in and then get it to go into the tensioner. You want to have it a little bit of an angle, not straight up and down, angle it and feed it up in. You really have to push back against the fan and force the bar in there. Get it on there, and now, I can pull as far as I can and reach up on this side and put the belt on. Make sure the belt is on the power steering pulley. From down here, we put the belt on there correctly. It's on my crank pulley correctly, and it's on this one correctly. This is the one I fed it onto right here. Take the wrench off, and again, you have to push back against the fan some. Actually, my fan is caught. I'm going to pull on it and make sure you feed the fan underneath. Now from the top side, you can see it's on the alternator correctly, and it's on these idler pulleys and the water pump all correctly.
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