Hey guys ... my belt is driving me NUTS!! It's less than a year old in great shape but just started chirp, chirp, chirp over the weekend. Thought it got something on it so took it off and washed it off with degreaser. No dice still chirps. If I shoot the under side of the belt with a little watter with a spritzer bottle it'll stop for a minute but come back with a vengance worse than ever. I took all my idlers off and I'm suspecting one of them that doesn't spin as freely at the other I'm thinking, hoping, that it is sliding on the belt a little?? Can I press out those bearigs on them or is it the whole pulley or nothing? Thanks for any ideas or similar situations .... squeak'n belts drive me crazy

 

If you have a place to get bearings you can press them out and replace them.

Check out the garage forum FAQ in my sig for info on belts.

 

try a wire brush on the inside of the belt while it running. its tricky and could eat your hand but it roughs the belt up enough to quiet it down. the small wire brushes for fin detail work work the best.

 

This is info from and old mechanic, and I have done it on several vehicles and it solved the problem of squeaky belts after the owners had tryed everthing (even belt dressing). I have never had anyone come back (yet) and say that the belt started squeaking again.

First make sure all of the idler pulley's are putting enough tension on the belt (measure the deflection). Then take the belt off, take a wire brush and brush all of the pulleys really, really good. Then (the part most poeple don't want to hear) put on a NEW belt.

How this works, the belt runs on the pulley's by the use of friction. What has happened is, over time the belt started slipping, (at this point you do not hear any noise) and as it slips it heats up and it leaves small bits of belt material on the pulley's surface, which create a slick surface. As this gets worse you hear squeaking. Just replacing the belt has not solved the problem (the slick pulley's). Then the new belt runs and starts slipping and it makes the belt softer which leaves more belt material on the pully's.

It takes a little time to do, but as I stated, it has solved the problem on every one that I have done if the idler pulley are good.

 

thanks for the ideas. I know it's not one of the back idlers cuz I put a little water on the back side of the belt and no change only works on the grooved side. I'm thinking of just replacing all the idlers and tensioner and the belt at onece and scuff'n the rest of the pulley's. All the pulleys are original with 189,000 on them so can't hurt.

Thanks again....

 

mine was doing the same thing... check to make sure the belt tensioner is not rubbing the idler pulley.... I had a bad belt tensioner...

Pat

 

also take a bar of soap and while the truck is running, put the soap up against the underneath of the belt and let it rub real good against the soap. Works every time.

 

miller502 ... yea I've used that before too it does always work.

 

ok here is the update ... It's fixed. I went and purchased everything. I got the Tensioner ( the longer armed one ), belt, grooved idler, and smooth idler. After further investigation during disassembly I noticed that my tensioner would kinda stick where it usually rode when I worked it through it's entire range. It would almost stay there with little pressure. So I beilieve it wasn't putting full pressure onto the belt causing the belt to slip causing the chirping.

The bearing on the tensioner was dry anyway. As I said earlier all had almost 190k on them so I didn't feel to bad about the money for them all.

NO CHIRP!!! WOOOHOOO!!