Belt/Pulley question now.

[Silverbullet]

New problem. I appologise for the wave of questions lately.



For awhile I've been dealing with a belt squeak that has gone from chirp, chirp, chirp, to completely gone, and now it is a very agressive constant squeal.



The chirp had gone until I started removing and installing belts of different lengths to find one that would work w/o the twin CP3's. This is when the constant squeal started. Since then I've:



- Removed the belt multiple times to check for alingment.

- Removed tensner pulley and rotated. No play and belt rides in middle of pulley, but does have a slight friction when turned by hand.

- Cleaned all pulleys with wire brush on groved surfaces and red pad on the smooth surfacess.



One thing I did notice is the idler puley has some play in it. It can be wiggled forward and back, very slightly but there is movement. Is it possible this pulley is failing and this is my problem?



I have been beating my head on the wall from the frustration. I do have a Gatorback belt of proper length to go on once the twins are out. And that may fix it. Just dont think I can handle hearing that constant squeak once it's on. Anything else someone could toss my way, please.

 

[steved]

I assume it only does it while driving? And that you can't at least narrow the area the noise is coming from??



My bet is either the idler or the tensioner pulley... mine were both dry of grease at nearly 200k.

 

[cojhl2]

I had this problem a few years back. It seems there are two different width of belts even for the same part number. One was about one grove wider than the other.



What I determined was that the wider belt rode up on the pulley's edge and that is where the squeek came from.



While the engine is running put some soap on the wear surfaces of the belt and see if the squek goes away. If it does the prob is with the belt itself and not a bearing somewhere.



It's darn frustrating!!

 

[Andersonville]

The soap works. The bearings in the pulleys might need replacing. I just did mine.

 

[seafish]

Dealer just replaced my alternator pulley, idler pulley, belt tensioner, and belt (which was riding forward and shredding itself, all under warranty at 54k miles. The alternator pulley was deemed the cause of belt failure, because there is a TSB out that calls for an improved, overunnning pulley to be installed if the belt fails. That being said, I know that the Idler pulley was very loose, cause I could wiggle it over an 1/8" in each direction, and the tensioner also felt loose to me. I like the idea of using soap to determine if either belt or bearing is the cause of noise. Mine started to whine the day before it satrted to fail. The whine came from the belt belt edge begining to ride against the pulley edges, as it no longer tracked on center.