Hey everyone -

If you read my other thread, I swapped my turbos out this weekend. This involved pulling the air pump, so the airpump/water pump/alternator belt was de-tensioned and pushed to one side. When I reinstalled the belt, I didn't realize the hose clamp for the primary turbo's inlet was rubbing the belt, and the belt broke in short order. Damn!

Got a Dayco belt from Pep Boys to replace it. I did, of course, have to pull the AC/power steering belt to get it on there.

Well, the AC/PS belt is squeaking quite a bit. That wouldn't be so bad, but this belt has CONSTANTLY cursed me with squeaking. It's less than a year old and is a Dayco belt from Pep Boys, which I've had VERY good luck with their FC belts over the years. It has continually squeaked - sometimes it would go away, then it would come back. Hit it with a little belt dressing and it would stop again.

Anyhow, I've always been cursed with this, and with it being quite bad now I'm ready to find a good fix. The pulleys are all clean and seem to be aligned nicely. I've tried different amounts of tension on the belt, belt dressing, etc. Also, there doesn't seem to be anything leaking on the belts or anything like that.

Any good ideas? Maybe I just need a better belt or something? I may just go get a new belt today and give it a crack.

Dale

 

I'd guess that a different (not even necessarily better) belt from a different manufacturer would make a difference due using a different rubber compound for the contact surfaces. Different compounds (as we all know from tires) have widely varying friction characteristics.

 

I had the same problem. Try flipping your idler pulley around. This fixed my problem after numerous times of loosening and tightening it.

 

Hmm - wonder if the spacer for the idler pulley isn't right. That could explain things!

The idler pulley is installed facing the right direction, though. I'll have to look at it again.

Dale

 

Mine was installed in the right direction also, but the squealing would not go away until I flipped it around.

I'm not sure what kind of damage this would do, by me flipping my idler pulley around. In the long run that is.

 

Rough up the pulleys with some medium grit sandpaper. They're probably polished from all the past squeaking.

Dave

 

try goodyear gatorbacks.?

 

My idler pulley just started squeaking this week too. I was thinking of ordering a new one, but now I'll try reversing it, see if it works for me. Between that and the autometer boost guage making a vibrating noise in the cockpit, it's been drivin' me nuts!

 

Dale,

Big ditto on the GY Gatorbacks. Best belts for any car in MHO. Example: I have a 96 Bronco that I put a twin-screw (whipple) SC on and from day one it was a squeaker. I tried aligning the pulleys, playing with the SC tensioner/angle/shims and even using belt dressing knowing it is not meant for serpentine belts. Really drove me nuts. The dressing would give me about 500 miles with lower squeaking....anyway, forward about two years and I installed an under-drive pulley for the R1 and the kit came with Gatorbacks. I was so impressed I picked up one for the Bronco, cleaned all the pulleys with 2+2 carb cleaner (basically toulene) and that was the end of the squeaks to this day, about 2 years and 10K (on the Bronco).

I believe that the cross hatching on the GB belts allow them to suffer smaller diameter and vertically misaligned pulleys better. Lastly, one or two drops of eg coolant will make about any belt a squeaker--I only bring this up because of the proximity of the coolant and AST caps to the FD's belts.

Good luck with it.

--John.

 

Thanks! No where locally has gatorbacks, unfortunately - Autozone lists them, but it's special order. I might just get them to get me one in.

Dale

 

You can buy spray on belt-anti-squeak. I've used it on my other daily driver cars to good effect.