Ford Taurus Squeak under the hood, how can I fix it?
If what you are hearing is a loud chirping noise at idle which becomes a whine at higher RPMs it is the bearing in the camshaft synchronizer going bad, a common problem on the Ford 3.0L V6 Vulcan engines. That bearing is not well lubricated on those engines and the chirping is usually intermittent and comes and goes in the early stages of wear. The camshaft synchronizer is mounted in place of the distributor and it is gear driven by the camshaft and drives the oil pump just like a distributor does, and the cam position sensor is mounted on top of the camshaft synchronizer where the distributor housing and cap would be on a distributor. It looks like this (the cap with the arrow is the synchronizer positioning tool which is used for installation): http://info.rockauto.com/getimage/getima... It is located on the engine block (driver side) buried beneath the wiring harnesses above where the engine is bolted to the transmission. To replace it, before removal, you must set number 1 piston to 0 degrees TDC of the compression stroke and then note and mark the position of the cam sensor electrical connector. The electrical connector must be located in the exact same position after installing the replacement camshaft synchronizer or the fuel injection system will be badly out of time with the engine. That is where the camshaft synchronizer positioning tool with the arrow on it is used during installation. Pointing it parallel to the center line of crankshaft toward the front of the crankshaft while number 1 piston is set to 0 degrees TDC of the compression stroke will put the cam sensor electrical connector in the pre-removal position. I don't recommend you attempt replacement yourself unless you are confident you can do it properly because you can really throw the fuel injection timing badly out of whack and still wind up having to pay the same labor charge to correct it as you would have had to pay to have it replaced. The labor charge will be about 2 hours, although with common short cuts most skilled mechanics can do it in less than an hour. The part cost about $50 if you buy it yourself at a discount parts store but rather than listing it as a camshaft synchronizer some parts catalogs might list it as a distributor or crank angle sensor.