screeching belts! argh!

[sweatmachine]

I just replaced the harmonic balancer and power steering pump on my '78 chevy. Of course this required pulling the 3 belts and replacing them. The tension is good on all of them yet there is some serious belt screeching going on, mostly while the truck is cold, but it has been intermittent lately.

The tension is good, the belts are in good shape (~3 years old), I don't know what else to do.

help?


thanks!

[60ratrod]

well you have one of a couple options here: one: the belts belts are screaming replace me!!, two: use belt dressing or a bar of soap, or three: replace what ever is making the thing squeal like a pig before easter. i had a 65 f100 that would squeal and squeal and squeal, no matter how many times i soaped the belt or used the belt dressing. it ended up being the bearing in the alternator was going out. i found this out after replacing the alternator cause it was doing a isht job of charging the system. if the belts are about 3 years old then i would replace them anyway. might solve it, but better to have a squealing pig than a broken belt on the highway. if you're lucky it'll just be the power steering pump belt. but if you are going to use the bar of soap method, you gotta soap the belts while its running. be careful of the fan cause that friggen thing will bite and bite hard!! but try the soap/dressing first to see what happens.

[BLE 'BURBAN]

NO!!!! DO NOT - I REPEAT - DO NOT USE BELT DRESSING!!!!
I'm sorry but that is THE WORST THING in the world you can do.

Belt dressing will help the belts to stop squeaking but being a petroleum based product, it will also decrease the life of the belts and being that it also helps the belts to "stick" to the pulleys, it will also allow road dirt and grime to stick to the belts and tear them AND the pulleys up even quicker than normal.

Your belts are squealing because they are glazed over from being loose or getting wet and slipping in the pulleys which causes them to "glaze" over on the contact surfaces.
What you need to do short of replacing the belts is take some fine grit sand paper (120 - 80 grit) and sand off the glazing on the contact surfaces of your belts. The glazed area's give the belts a shiny smooth look. Very easy to spot.
Do the same thing to your pulleys as well.

Double check the tension of the belts Here's how I checked mine in the past when i had multiple V-belts on an engine.
1. Find the center position of the belt between the longest span of it's travel from one pulley to another.
2. Push on the belt at this point and there should be no more than 1/2 to 5/8 of an inch of flexion in the belt. Any more and you need to tighten them up.
Once you do this you should be good to go.
Should you decide to just replace the belts, I would still suggest scuffing up the pulleys with the sand paper before installing the new belts.
Then after about a month of driving go back and retighten the belts as new belts will stretch a bit at first.

Oh and do this while the engine is off. You can always crank the engine around with a socket and ratchet on the crank shaft center bolt.

[60ratrod]

my bad! i just used those items to quite the brand new belt that i had put on it before i found out that it was the bearing in the alternator was worn out. but if the squealing continues i would look into checking your accessories as the bearings may be worn out

[sweatmachine]

I sprayed some motorcycle "chain wax" onto the alt belt and it stopped the screeching. I'm looking for a quick/easy fix here as I'm trying to unload the truck asap.

thanks guys!

[heavychevy79]

Originally Posted by sweatmachine

I sprayed some motorcycle "chain wax" onto the alt belt and it stopped the screeching. I'm looking for a quick/easy fix here as I'm trying to unload the truck asap.

thanks guys!

I adopt abandoned and unwanted Chevys. Got any pics?

[sweatmachine]

Originally Posted by heavychevy79

I adopt abandoned and unwanted Chevys. Got any pics?

I'll PM you