Belt Squeal
 

My PS belt has just started squealing. It is adjusted to as tight as the others and as tight as I feel it should be. It just started doing it. Squeals at high RPM and upon cranking. It is a Gates belt so it is not cheap. Any suggestions to get it to quieten down?

They stretch some after use,re-tighten.Tom

I have never heard a belt make noise during cranking before the motor lights off unless it was very loose already!

You may have two issues, a starter screech at cranking and the belt making noise after that.

sometimes the clutch on the fan is to strong making it squeal when locked up

I’m gonna tighten it more some today and see how it does. I was going by the old belt flex recommendations but I don’t think that’s tight enougb

Ditto on the consideration of the clutch fan. Personal experience.

I am at the end of my adjustment and its still squealing. A .5 inch shorter belt wont fit. I guess its glazed cause it just started doing it. I wish I had not gotten the V belt setup

what pulleys do you have? check the pulleys for proper belt fitment into the groove. also, if they are OEM pulleys & painted, get the paint out of the grooves. if its glazed over from too much slipping its best to replace the belt but i have had luck using a little belt dressing, i have a tube of old stuff that you apply with your finger in a few spots on the belt then it spreads around the pulley.. not the newer spray on stuff that makes a mess.

Do you have the correct width belts? The parts stores now sell us the same width belt for the alt and ps. On my car ('76 GP) the PS belt should be slightly wider than the Alt belt, 7/16" vs 3/8" but the part store computer shows both should be 3/8 wide. If you look at the water pump pulley where both belts go, does one sit deeper in the pulley groove? If yes, it causes the one belt to try and spin faster and makes it squeal. The Gates Alt belt number should start with a 7 and the PS belt number should start with a 9. See this post:
http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...d.php?t=795159

Most parts stores only sell 15mm belts. As mentioned above look and see if the belts are at the same height on the WP pully. if one is riding higher or lower then the other the belts are rotating at different speeds.

I run a 15mm and 17mm belts and works great.

they are sitting even

If your asking me, Yes they are.

One other thing I just remembered was I had to get a new WP pulley. The WP pully had the same size groves where the crank pulley did not.

I’m beginning to think the squeal on startup was the starter. Ordered a ROBBMC

you "think" that or you know by further testing & confirming it? a starter squeal & a belt squeal should sound totally different.

there are many ways to verify if its belt related, i think some of them were mentioned here... spray a little water on the belt(s) then start the engine to see if the sound if still there. or simply remove one belt at a time then start the engine to see if it makes noise... wont hurt the engine to start with 1 missing belt or even no belt for a few seconds. or replace the belt if its glazed over & be sure its the right width.

should be able to tell pretty easy if its belts of not, better than throwing expensive parts at it.

Well I’m not throwing parts at it, the Summit Starter sounds like rocks in a coffee can now.

just a figure of speech.... you said you are "beginning to think" the squeal is from the starter, why?

how about the other questions asked? did you do any further testing to confirm if the squeal you described on this thread was from the belts? if the starter was bad then replacing it is needed, but belt squeal doesnt sound like rocks in a coffee can.

So this is the order of events. The power steering belt started squealing, I know that’s what it is cause it was squealing when turning and hard braking (hydroboost). I adjusted it as tight as possible and it went away when turning and stopping but then start screaming at high RPM. I think started hearing a brief screech when starting but dismissed it as the belt. I have a new belt I just have not put it on yet. Drove the car Friday taking it easy, no squeal when babying it and only that whine for a second at start up. Yesterday went to back it out and it sounded awful. Stopped in driveway and checked cause it sounded like one of the starter bolts had fallen out. Everything looked good so I decided to pull it back in. Started it and it sounded like gravel. I ordered the Robbmc because this I would be the 3rd time the starter has been rebuilt. I even changed the flywheel cause of this.

ok, i didnt see any of that info posted, just the recent post almost 2 weeks later saying you think its the starter.

strange the starter needed rebuilt 3 times, i have a summit starter in use for 7+ years on a 500+hp 10.75:1 467 that works great. last i heard summit starters are just re-boxed powermaster starters.

Even if your starter is defective, how do you explain the perceived belt squeal at higher RPM that you mentioned previously? Your starter shouldn't be engaged at all while driving the car, so it would seem there are two separate issues at play here.

Also, I'm somewhat curious to see if a new/different starter will actually fix your problem. Lots of people have good luck with the Summit starter, and for yours to have failed after being rebuilt twice, it makes be wonder if there is something else going on. Wrong flywheel maybe? It just seems too much of a coincidence for a starter to fail three times. Hopefully I'm wrong and your new RobbMC starter will solve the issue, but your situation is really odd.

changed the flywheel too