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Every new accessory belt squealing, 98gtp

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Bigjoe980

New member
First thing first, my old, terrible, chunked belt (there is quite literally a 6-7 inch chunk gone from one rib, and the entire belt is missing half of the top strip of another rib) DOES-NOT-SQUEAL.
seriously, no chirp, no slip, no glazing, no burning, nada.. turns everything just fine under load or not. end of story. Pulleys seem to be okay, not great... but no wobble, no bearings seem to be shot.

Now my problem is that every f#%$&^% new belt I buy, squeals far more than I could ever imagine. and it's always the same way, the day I first put it on, it's all fine, the next morning is a chirp that goes away after some time to idle, and then later that day is a full blown squeal. I've tried every effective length from 93.3 to 94 inch. I'm absolutely 100% positive the tensioner is slightly out of alignment (the tensioner, NOT the pulley on it's own) there is a gap compared to the S/C tensioner, and the gap size looks almost identical to how much the pulley sticks out too far, judging by eyeball anyways.

Still, this doesn't explain why the old belt works flawless, and new belts work for half a day as if they were wearing quickly leading to squeal. (bit measurements show no wear what so ever from this short period)

Any body got some thoughts, tips, hell...randoms shots in the dark about how to go for atleast correcting it short term?


not having any other problems aside from my rear valve cover seeming to be leaking.. sigh, damn this hard to access design
 


What brand of belts have you bought or tried?

Do any of the smooth pulleys have any build up of rubber or rust on them?? I like to take screw drivers and run them on pulleys to clean them while the motor is running.
 
gates, 93.5 dayco, masterpros, some autozone ****, and some local race brand.. can't remember. Seems odd to me, I can't blame it on being wrong sizes, since I'm running stock parts (yes, I need to replace nearly anything that moves, but it isn't viable at this moment)

whoops, spaced the second half. the smooths all look fair imo, re-cleaned them all last night. Only the power steering pump is dirty really, but I'm positive the noise is far above crank height, and the wheels turn just fine. Alt pulley is perfect since it's brand new, A/C pulley is smooth enough (but I do have a leak in the piping somewhere..)

Heck, the S/C pulleys look like hell compared to the main drive, and I've got no problems there besides an awfully wimpy tensioner.

I'm kind of wondering if I should try the dayco 93inch effective length. roughly 10mm less than anything else I've tried so far, my old belt is stretched out to like...93.87 circumfrence?
 
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idlers and tensioners can squeal when bad too. so if they are bad they need to be changed.

you can carefully touch each center bolt on the idlers and tensioners, if its bad you can feel it grinding as its spinning.

then theres always take the sc belt off, see if it stops, if it dont stop take the other belt off too. if its gone you know what set of pulleys is the issue.
 


Haha, already done both of those! It's on the alt (main drive, accessory, whatever you wanna call it) belt. In the tensioner pulley, the bearing is definitely wearing, and it sounds pretty nasty... but, it's the scratchy sound of an old bearing that isn't really doing much different with any belt, the sound is there beyond the squeal so.. *shrugs* just assuming that not quite my devil noise.



hrrrm, update... went out and rerouted my belt twice a few mins ago, first time still squealed, second time i had no squeal but my tensioner pulley went from annoying noise to sounding like a turbo diesel vaccuum at idle >.> Still can't help but feel like it's NOT the entire problem though... strange stuff
 
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went and bought a gates drivealign pulley..... uh, is it supposed to look like somebody took sand paper to it? its quite scuffed... and kinda stiff to turn, but I may be over reacting
 
Is the tensioner arm bouncing around? My guess would be not enough tension being applied or the thing is sticking. I've seen a couple where the arm locked up entirely and a few where there's not enough tension due to worn out arm.
 
Nah, the tension is perfect, just looks like the arm is slowy moving away from the bracket. the tension on the S/C side however, ... that's something to laugh at, it works great and all but I can depress it from any point on the belt with one finger, I'm not honestly sure how it isn't slipping!
 
LIM gaskets leaking coolant onto belt/pulley? I don't know man, If you see it's separating though just go grab one from pullapart for $5 or something to rule it out as the cause of the squeal.
 


I think I've actually avoided that problem, lol, no antifreeze leaks at all on the ol' gal.. might make it to 200k before one finally springs. I think it just needs tightened up, but I don't have really have much to work with regardless at the moment,



okay, so after putting the new pulley on its much less noisy...but there still... and after this my rear valve cover stopped leaking,.. as much as i love it, this is the weirdest engine I've ever had.
 
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