ih8unow

The water pump went out on my 99 last week. I stopped by Autozone and picked one up then went by Harbor Freight and snagged a pulley puller kit. Today I finally had a chance to get under the hood and everything is going fine until I get to the power steering pulley.

Some genius decided to make that son of a bitch out of plastic. I put the puller on it and start to wrench on it when I hear a crack. The puller actually pulled the pulley off of the metal insert that had fused itself to the shaft. I end up having to cut the insert off with an air tool.

Why not metal like every other pulley? Why Ford Why?

PNYXPRESS

Why would you remove the power steering pulley to replace the water pump?

The ps pump is a completely separate unit.

ih8unow

Because Ford engineers are demon spawn. There is a bracket bolted onto the water pump that the power steering pump shaft goes through with the pulley on the other side. It is ridiculous.

Daehawk

Thats strange..pretty sure mine is like this one in the video...You just disconnect the bracket not pull the pulley.

ih8unow

Trust me, that bracket isn't coming off there with the pulley still on the power steering pump. You can't pull it forward far enough to clear the studs. I am mainly pissed because I actually took the time to look up how to do it and go buy the correct tools and it still f'd up.

Seriously though why a plastic pulley? The water pump pulley is metal. The crank pulley is metal. The ac pulley and alternator pulley are metal.

Daehawk

mine and the one in the video look metal. I wonder if someone has replaced your's before with plastic? Maybe it was cheaper or they were saving weight.

corker

I agree, that bracket made the simple water pump job a PITA. I pulled the whole PS / Alt cradle bracket off once the PS pulley wouldn't budge - added time to the job. It does sound like someone replaced the original steel pulley with a plastic one - mine was steel as well.
But, I stopped blaming the engineers once I found out the bean counters are holding the engineers accountable for cutting expenses. Congress demands better fuel economy, corporate managers say to cut weight, engineers try to keep the cars operational, functional and repairable, bean counters say "no" too expensive-come back with a less expensive solution and customers pay the price for $125/hr labor to replace a simple water pump - it all flows downhill to the consumer.
Corky

ih8unow

That is possible. The one I got from Autozone is plastic too. If I had the time to wait on it to get here I would have gone to the dealership and bought an oem piece. Maybe the Ford part is metal and the aftermarkets are plastic because all Autozone had was the Dorman pulley. Can't edit the thread title but it probably should be Stupid Dorman Engineers.