Well, my 1993 taurus 3.0 vulcan was making a constant whining sound from the serp belt area. It was a smooth noise as the RPM went up and down. I thought sure it was the water pump impeller was rubbing the case as it had happen before. I had the new pump, but had not got to it yet. (too many other projects). Well, the wife called me and said she got off the interstate and the car made some noises and it got hard to steer and the check engine light came on. Shit! well, i went down to the spot and looked things over. She handed me what looked like the tensioner with its ball bearing guts disemboweled. I looked down and saw the tensioner was still on the car.
At that point, i headed home to get the shop manual and tools. I looked and discovered this car has a FIXED idler as well as a tensioner. I had a spare tensioner, so i grabbed it along with tools and headed down to the car. It seemed the tensioner wheel was the same as the idler wheel, so i hoped i could do the swap to at least get the car home. Went to try to put it on and took off the washer tank. It leaked all over and i was kind of puzzled until i saw the hole in the side of the plastic tank. The fixed idler bolt backed out and drilled into the side of the washer tank.!
Well using the hardware from the back of the old tensioner, i managed to make my spare tensioner idler work as the fixed idler. My theory was the bearing went bad in the fixed idler. Then the mount bolt backed out and drilled into the washer tank. I was just surprised of the noise it had made. With the smoother whine, i thought sure it was the water pump. I put my head close to the PS pump and it did not seem to be the source of the noise. Live and learn. And have a good supply of spare taurus parts in the garage ;)
Bob