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99 Escort

Hello All,

I have a question about my daughter's 99 Ford Escort. It's a 4-door sedan with a 2.0L engine, manual shift transmission, power steering, and no air-conditioning.

She was driving it the other day and noticed a vibration while at a stop light. Instead of pulling over and shutting it off she tried to drive it home. She heard a couple of pings and the engine stopped running. We had it towed home and I found that all but one of the bolts holding the power steering pump pulley had come loose and fallen off. The belt on the pulley looks pretty chewed up and the pulley itself is hanging by a single bolt.

So, my question is what's it going to take to fix this? Although I've worked on several cars over the years, mostly older V8s, I'm not really a mechanic. This thing doesn't look like I'd even be able to fit my hand in there anywhere! So, should I take it to a real mechanic and pay to have it fixed, or is this something that I can do myself? What's involved in replacing this belt and pulley?

Any information will be greatly appreciated.

Regards, Michael Newton

Reply to
Michael Newton
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They should recruit a ton of chinese men and give them a contract for free board and lodgine + training so long as they work as mechanics for a length of time. Those Chinese have smaller hands and smaller everything, perfect for working on todays automobiles where space is tight when servicing.

Reply to
Eastward Bound

Take off thewheel & the splashguard & you may be able to get at this ( I think).

Reply to
Joe B

Joe,

Thanks for the reply. I took a closer look at it and the belt doesn't look like it would be too difficult to replace. That is if I can get the splashguard off and figure out how the damn tensioner works.

Regards, Michael Newton

Reply to
Michael Newton

Actually there is no need to take off the wheel,just lock the steering to one side.The tensioner is just spring loaded and you just turn with a sutible spanner (flat belt ). However my escort may be different to yours.

Reply to
Joe B

Joe,

Well, after looking at it some more ( a lot more) I finally decided to take it in and have a mechanic fix the damn thing. I thought it would be just a matter of replacing the belt and the missing pulley bolts. Boy was I wrong! They called me back and told me that the tensioner was bent and needs replacing, the power steering pump was leaking and needs replacing, and some type of sensor near the crank pulley was broken off and needs replacing. They estimate close to $800.00 to fix it all.

Regards, Michael Newton

Reply to
Michael Newton

If your splashguard is like the one in my 1995 Escort, the bolts holding in on are really rusted. Do not reuse them! Replace them with stainless steel ones. You'll thank me later if you ever have to remove them again! Lowes carries M6-1.0 stainless steel bolts. They are 16mm instead of 10mm that the car comes with, but that doesn't matter. And put some grease on the threads brefore install. Pep Boys has M6 clips that fit perfectly if you need to replace those also (sold in packs of 2).

Reply to
Childfree Scott

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