squeaking serpentine belt
 

The serpentine belt was replaced about 200 miles ago and now it has begun squeaking / squealing / chirping. There are certain times when it goes away, but otherwise I have to drown it out with the throttle or the stereo. Neither is a big help stopped at a light and the guy next to me is looking over for all the wrong reasons. Ideas on how I might quiet the sucker down?

Re: squeaking serpentine belt
 

I've had the same issue.

I tried "belt ease" without much success. Had more success with silicon spray.

Re: squeaking serpentine belt
 

Just a fwiw, I ran into this squeak thing and I tried the usual 'fixes'....eventually I coughed up the cash for a GM belt vs whatever the parts store had...the squeak went away.

I observed that the parts store belt felt like the rubber was hard vs the GM boxed belt in my case. This I thought very strange, old stock sitting around a long time? :icon_scra I just don't know what to say, but you could feel the difference between the two belts!

:cheers:
Tom

Re: squeaking serpentine belt
 

Sure it is not the belt tensioner?? Bearings go out on those things and they start to squeak and squeal etc. Starts as intermittent then progresses to full time

Re: squeaking serpentine belt
 

When I replaced mine two years ago I had the choice between the part store's brand or Goodyear. After holding the two, the Goodyear 'Gatorback' was clearly superior. I never had a sqweak!

Re: squeaking serpentine belt
 

I was looking at one at one parts store that might have been sitting around the warehouse since Big Willy was Prez. It was dry rotted pretty badly so of course I let the parts guy know and didn't buy it.

Re: squeaking serpentine belt
 

Mine is new and it squeaks; cheap crap from China. So, I'll look around for a Gates or Goodyear or ?

Far as a bearing squeaking goes, a trick we used often was to take a spray bottle with water in it and squirt the belt with the engine running. If it stops squeaking, it is the belt. Otherwise, it may be a bearing and for that a mechanic's stethoscope is handy.

Sometimes noise from a bearing travels thru the block to make it difficult to tell exactly where a squeak is coming from - in spite of using the probe on the stethoscope. A trick Marc Haibeck also uses is to remove the probe and just use the rubber hose as a makeshift directional pickup to poke around the front of the engine. That sometimes works when results with the metal probe is ambiguous.

Hope this helps.

P.

Re: squeaking serpentine belt
 

Thanks for the suggestions guys. After a little further examination, I think it's not the belt but the tensioner. I have a replacement tensioner that the previous owner gave to me so it looks like that's going on the TO DO list. I'm thinking that there's probably a reason he picked up a replacement. ;)