My mother is a typical soccer mom, so when she was looking for a vehicle, it had to be a van capable of carrying lots of kids. She bought a 2002 Ford Windstar with the 3.8-liter engine for a good price, and used it for a while before it starting making a squealing noise. It turns out that the bearing in the belt tensioner was bad and needed to be replaced. It wasn't a difficult job.
I used a 15 mm wrench to rotate the tensioner counterclockwise, and then pushed the spring clip toward the tensioner to lock it in place. Then I got under the van to take the tensioner off. I had to use the jacking and support points identified by a triangle stamped in the unibody sheet metal behind the front wheels, taking care not to let the floor jack or the jack stands to contact any other parts of the van.
Taking off the tensioner assembly was fairly straightforward. Three bolts hold the tensioner to the engine. I took them off and the tensioner was free. I replaced the tensioner on my mom's Windstar with part No. 6B209 from the auto supply store and tightened those bolts to 18 foot-pounds.
