The 2003 Ford Taurus comes equipped with a serpentine belt that runs all of the pulleys on the front of the engine. Instead of having three or four different belts to run the engine pulley process, the serpentine belt wraps around all of the pulleys to fit perfectly and run all of the pulleys at one time. A serpentine belt needs to replaced whenever there are more cracks per square inch than there are ribs across the serpentine belt.
Locate the serpentine belt tensioner on the front of the engine. The tensioner is what keeps tension on the belt and keeps the belt from coming off. The tensioner will have a bolt head in the middle of it that a 15mm socket will fit.
Look on the hood base where the hood lock attaches to the base and see if there is a belt diagram. This diagram will give you the exact instructions for properly routing the belt across the pulleys. If there is no diagram there, you will need to write down the exact routing of the belt on the pulleys on a notepad.
Put the 15mm socket onto the ratchet and put the ratchet onto the bolt head on the belt tensioner.
Turn the tensioner clockwise to relieve the tension on the belt and remove the belt from all of the pulleys.
Route the new serpentine belt the same way that the old one came off by following the belt routing diagram instructions. Do not put the belt across the tensioner until last. keep in mind that the belt will only go on one way and be right.
Put the ratchet with the 15mm socket back on the belt tensioner and rotate the tensioner clock wise to give you enough room to slide the new belt across the belt tensioner pulley. Slide the belt onto the belt tensioner pulley and release the belt tensioner. Look over the belt and double check to make sure that the belt is running across all of the pulleys correctly.
Crank the car and inspect that the belt is secure and is staying in the grooves on all of the pulleys.
