The other car related message board that I frequent isn't helping me any with this one, so I thought I'd give this place a shot.  The car is a 1999 ford taurus with the 3L 2V vulcan.  There's a serpentine-ish squeak that happens more frequently when cold (ie, below 50 dF.)  I am not old enough to have been around when cars were all packing distributors, so I don't really know that much about the theory involved in this distributor replacing component.  Myriad of places on the internet say that you can replace the cam angle sensor without a tool if you just mark the position of the old one with a sharpie marker, and make sure that the new one is congruent to the old.  I would much rather be in a situation where I could just put the engine to TDC and not have to worry about the position of anything, but that isn't the case.  Looking at the new part, i see a shaft with a gear on it, a sensor attached to the end by bolts, and i'm guessing the important alignment bits between the gear and the sensor.  If anyone has done this before, sans tool, i'd appreciate your insights.  Thanks.

try to rent or borrow tool.been a long time since working at dealership.any marks on sensor to help in the installation.