Do You Have A Squealing Bearing Noise That You Can't Find?!?

I had a squealing noise coming from the engine that I thought sounded like a bearing going bad. Put the stethoscope on all the belt driven components and decided it was the water pump. Replaced it, started the engine, noise was still there! Searched around and found this link:

FORD MUSTANG 3.8 LITRE CAM POSITION SYNCHRONIZER 1

If you have the same problem on your 3.8L, try disconnecting the belt and run your engine for a minute to rule out any belt driven components. If the bearing squeal sound is still there, then it might be your camshaft position synchronizer.

Wish I would have done that first. I could have saved the cost of the new water pump and all the time I spent swapping out something that didn't need to be replaced.

Swapping out the synchro shaft was very easy and straight forward, exactly as described in the referenced article. Way less involved than swapping out the water pump (draining coolant, pulling power steering pump pulley and bracket, scraping off old gaskets, torquing bolts, etc, etc). I just hope this post saves others time and money to NOT go the route that I did!!!