vacuum pump shaft bearing failure

[grover738]

Newbie here. Pulling my camper home tonight with my '96 F250 with 268,000 miles, three things happened - parking brake light went on, cruise control stopped working, and brakes got really firm but weak. Talked to a guy who has had a bunch of powerstokes, we figured it was the vacuum pump. I checked under the hood, and the serpentine belt was squeaking. Tried to get home, but ended up tossing the serpentine belt when the bearing went on the shaft of the vacuum pump. The pulley no longer lines up with the path of the belt, the shaft is bent, the bearing is gone, I was almost able to pull the pulley & shaft assembly out with no tools.

So I did the "one mile at a time" shoulder drive, keeping it from overheating until I could get it into a parking lot.

I'm at a relative's house tonight. I have no tools with. I need to take care of it in the morning and get home. I'm fairly mechanically inclined - I'm confident I could replace the whole assembly if a ford dealership has the parts needed. At the very least the bearing and shaft are done for. It is possible the pulley and the pump are functional, but I'm ok with replacing the whole assembly due to the age of the pump and the simplicity of replacing all of it.

Question -

What tools do I need to replace the pump & re-install the serpentine belt?

(pliers for the tube, 10mm C-wrench (or gear wrench?)

Do I need a pulley puller? Or can I get the whole assembly together?

[grover738]

Got it fixed. It was easy to remove the pump with the pulley shaft bent, I could rotate it around and get at all the bolts with a 10 mm six sided socket on a 1/2 in breaker bar.

Only screw up was having the Ford dealership put on the pulley (they were nice enought to do that for free) without the bolts in the holes. Had to make a return trip, have them remove the pulley, put the bolts in, then reinstall the pulley. I suppose this would be obvious to anyone changing one without a bent shaft, but it wasn't to me since I could remove the bolts with the pulley on since the shaft was bent. Anyway, the dealership didn't charge me either time. Morrie's Minnetonka Ford in Minnetonka, MN - they really took care of me (after I spent $290 on a new pump)

I've seen some threads on here saying the bolts are 9.8mm - seemed like a 10mm to me. A good quality six sided closed end wrench should get them off....

[metallitera]

Yea i read those threads too, guess wal-mart brand wrenches were being used.My Snap-On socket & wrench fit just fine.

I did the same pulley thing also, put my pulley on(AFTER i had read the thread that said PUT BOLTS IN FIRST) and had to take 'er off again.

Does your new pump have a warranty? I got mine from orielly's for $90 and a life time warranty.

[grover738]

1 year warranty. I'm not too happy about dropping $290, but the dealership did put on the pulley, take it off so the bolts could be put on, and put it back on again for no charge, so I'm not too worked up about it. I planned on stuff like this when I bought a 12 year old truck with 265,000 miles on it...