Belt Squeak driving me crazy!

shadow247

shadow247

New member
When I bought this truck it had a little squeak during cold morning starts. I figured no big deal and replaced the belts with Goodyear gatorbacks, which I have used on a few other vehicles. Well the squeak persisted so I changed the A/C idler pulley. It is still squeaking and driving me nuts. It doesn't change when I turn the wheel, nor when I turn on the A/C. I am at my wits end with this noise! I have tried belt dressing, which ony made the noise worse for a while. I haven't tried cleaning the other pulleys, but I doubt tha will help as the noise goes away once the truck is fully warmed up. Please help!
 
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are you sure all of your belts are tightened properly? brand new belts will stretch as they settle in so you may have to recheck them. also, to help determine which one it is, give each one a shot of baby powder (yes, for real) on the drive surface. the powder will shut it up immediately and actually last for several days, plus it smells good.
 
you say it got worse when you applied belt dressing. this is because it is a bearing that is squealing and all you did was increase the drag on it. it clearly isn't the a/c pulley so check the alternator and the power steering pulley bearings. spray something on them while it is running; the squeal will temporarily stop when you hit the right one.
watch your fingers.:thumb3:
 
my plan in the morning is to take the PS and AC belt off and thenrun the truck to see if its the alternator. Then I will put another belt on until the problem appears again.
 
Don't guess at it--track it down. I just had a similar problem on my son's '99 BMW 323i 'vert. That has a serpentine belt so you can't pull belts individually.

I used a 3' length of clear 3/8 " tubing I had lying around. With one end in my ear I listened to each rotating item on the engine. It was easy to trace it to the tensioner idler. Easy swap and done.

I hate guessing. Pulling belts is ok, but it's more work and some have idlers (A/C) or multiple belts (fake w/p). So I'd try this first.

Just be very careful nothing gets caught in the rotating engine and if it does, that no part of you goes with it. That can really ruin your day.
 
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TheDurk said:
Don't guess at it--track it down. I just had a similar problem on my son's '99 BMW 323i 'vert. That has a serpentine belt so you can't pull belts individually.

I used a 3' length of clear 3/8 " tubing I had lying around. With one end in my ear I listened to each rotating item on the engine. It was easy to trace it to the tensioner idler. Easy swap and done.

I hate guessing. Pulling belts is ok, but it's more work and some have idlers (A/C) or multiple belts (fake w/p). So I'd try this first.

Just be very careful nothing gets caught in the rotating engine and if it does, that no part of you goes with it. That can really ruin your day.
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Its just too dangerous in my mind to put my hands anywhere near the rotation belts, that's why I am just going to pull the bekts off one by one till the noise quits. It ony too me 30 minutes to swap the belts, so that just seems like the way to go. With it being cooler this time of year I am always wearing long sleeves, and just don't want to risk it. My hands are my money makers, and if I tore them up messing around with my truck I would be in serious trouble. I'll post up in the morning once I've narrowed down which belt it is. Hopefully someone else can learn from my experience.
 
I just took mine in today because I was getting a squeal on first start up. They replaced the drive belts. So far so good.
 
OK I've narrowed down the problem. It is NOT the drive belts. I pulled all 3 belts off and it was still squeaking! So the only thing left is the timing belt. I pulled the upper timing cover off, started the engine, and sure enough, a nice squeak/chirp coming from the timing belt area. I sprayed some teflon lube on the Idler pulley with no change, put a screwdriver to the area near the water pump and I think that's where the noise is coming from. What peeves me is the PO had the Timing belt replace about 35k ago, so it looks like I get to tear into it again. The most puzzling part of the whole thing is that once the truck is fully warm, the noise is GONE! That sort of leads me to believe it is the water pump at this point, but I don't really want to just replace the water pump and not have that be the issue. So I"m just going to save up for the timing belt kit and replace everything again.

I did notice some streaky/rust lines on the Tensioner pulley, but again, if I'm going to go through the trouble of taking it all apart, I'll just replace it all. What do you guys think?
 
Just out of curiosity do you know where the previous owner had the timing belt done. In other words was it Toyota parts or aftermarket?
 
He bought it from the Chevy dealer I worked at, but there was no history on file other than a couple of oil changes and the 3 times it was in the body shop. Probably had it done at Midas or somewhere similar. The first thing I did was check on the Toyota website and it doesn't look like he ever took it to Toyota for service. I'm thinking they just replaced the belt and W/P and didn't change the Tensioner pulleys. I'm just gonna keep driving it as is, and once my wife goes back to work it will mostly be parked anyway as I ride my motorcycle just about everywhere. The noise is just driving me crazy. I guess issues are to be expected for a vehicle with 345k miles.

The next thing I have to deal with is the damage to the rear bumper and right quarter panel. I had a minor fender bender in a parking lot yesterday. Some lady was parked on a scooter up on the curb next to the building and I turned left to go down the side of the building just as she came flying off the curb on the scooter. I had plenty of time to make it but she had no idea how to ride and instead of hitting the brake accellerated right into my right quarter panel. No insurance, no license, and no registration on the scooter so I'm not sure how my insurance will handle it with her. The best part is I know the insurance adjuster that will be handling my claim, so I'm pretty sure I can get some UCA's out of the deal!
 
shadow247 said:
He bought it from the Chevy dealer I worked at, but there was no history on file other than a couple of oil changes and the 3 times it was in the body shop. Probably had it done at Midas or somewhere similar. The first thing I did was check on the Toyota website and it doesn't look like he ever took it to Toyota for service. I'm thinking they just replaced the belt and W/P and didn't change the Tensioner pulleys. I'm just gonna keep driving it as is, and once my wife goes back to work it will mostly be parked anyway as I ride my motorcycle just about everywhere. The noise is just driving me crazy. I guess issues are to be expected for a vehicle with 345k miles.

The next thing I have to deal with is the damage to the rear bumper and right quarter panel. I had a minor fender bender in a parking lot yesterday. Some lady was parked on a scooter up on the curb next to the building and I turned left to go down the side of the building just as she came flying off the curb on the scooter. I had plenty of time to make it but she had no idea how to ride and instead of hitting the brake accellerated right into my right quarter panel. No insurance, no license, and no registration on the scooter so I'm not sure how my insurance will handle it with her. The best part is I know the insurance adjuster that will be handling my claim, so I'm pretty sure I can get some UCA's out of the deal!
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File a lawsuit against her. Bet it'll teach her to get her **** straight or walk!
 
Pulling up an old post. I've got a similar squeaking.

Did you end up replacing the timing belt? What else did you replace while you were in there?

Did you find any of the idlers suspect? Is the noise gone? Could you narrow it down to what you think the culprit was?

Thanks


.
 
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