Mexstan

Hey Fronty, welcome back.

Late getting on here this week. Too much to do. No coffee? Oh well, will settle for just a glass of good clean water. For some of you, just plain water may be too much of a shock to your system!

Still fighting with a mysterious squeal coming from the front of the truck engine. It was very loud last month, so slackened the belt and spun all the pulleys. Every one of them spun smoothly, but the water pump had a very slight squeal when I turned it backwards. Changed the water pump and everything was quiet. Problem solved. Ummm ----- no. A week ago started to hear a whine starting around 1,400 rpm. It seemed to vanish around 2,000 rpm. Yesterday started to hear a slight intermittent squeak again. This morning again slackened the belt and spun all the pulleys. No noise and no play anywhere. Put the belt back and went for a drive. Now there is a very loud continuous squeal that seems to coming from around the center of the engine. Sprayed some belt lube on, but no change so hopefully that eliminates the belt as the source of the noise. At the point where I need to just throw parts at the thing, starting with a new idler bearing. That's the easiest part to change. Then the tensioner bearing. Then the fan bearing, then .....????? Anybody have any ideas?

It will be very interesting to see where America is by the end of next week. Of course the 20th will be quite a day too.

madhat

Take the belt off and crank it up... see if it's still there. That'll rule out pumps/motors/pulleys.

Mexstan

Was going to do that this morning, but forgot.
Need to take a 40 mile drive early tomorrow and will see if it gets worse. Hope that nothing falls off while I am on the road. Whatever happens, once I return will start some serious troubleshooting, dismantling etc.

Not sure if this is related, but many years ago and tens of thousands of miles ago, the extreme forward "V" of the belt tore off. No idea why. Checked everything for alignment but could see nothing wrong. Installed a new Gates belt and the same thing happened within two days. As I was on a long trip, decided to just drive that way and see what happens. Nothing bad happened and no noises, so left the bad belt on. Other than one missing "V", the old belt looks fine. Keep a new belt in the truck just in case.

Scotty

The plastic wheel on the belt tensioner is my bet.
mine would go away at higher rpm sometimes.
sometimes it would be silent at low rpm.
when i took it off,the plastic and so called bearing were toast.
If that packs itself in while driving, you'll have a stranded vehicle and possibly damage from the belt flying off.

FiverBob

Good morning all. Gorgeous morning down this way - - again. Heading for 80 again today - - fairly low humidity (for here). Plants love it. Well, yeh, so do I - - ........

Put on some fresh coffee and ph00 and heading out to do something productive - - like go fishing, or play golf. Y'all be good.

...........................................

Mexstan

Good morning from a non frozen land. No rain, no ice, no s**w, no temperatures with a minus in front of it - just lots of sun and sometimes a few clouds. Me like. Lots! Sorry for the rest of you that are suffering.

OK Scotty, you scared me enough to cancel all my plans for today. The absolute last thing that I want is for things to fall apart and cause costly damage and leave me stranded. Just need to do a very short local trip with the truck and then will tear it apart and do whatever is necessary to fix the problem. About 40 or 50,000 miles ago I did replace the tensioner pulley because I noticed that it had somehow worn very badly out of round but not noisy. It was just lumpy. Can't see signs of that so far, but will know later this morning.

Scotty

I replaced my factory one at 400,000 miles and the el cheapo I bought off the net lasted 40-50 k miles.
I bought one at napa in north dakota and it was much better and lasted until the deer ate my truck.

Mexstan

Stopped for a coffee and some head scratching. Took the belt off and started the engine. No noise, so that means the squeal is something that is belt driven. Changed the tensioner pulley and the squeal is still there. Pulled the idler pulley but the bearing is very smooth and spins very freely, so doubt if that is the problem. Spun the fan as best as I could but it makes no noise and does not wobble. It does not spin totally freely as it is bit stiff. Think this is normal, but not sure. I have a new belt, so will change that and see it that makes any difference.

What else could cause a high pitched squeal? Surely not the A/C or the P/S pump? The new water pump squeals a bit when turned by hand and is a bit stiff, but that sounds like a rubber (seal) noise. I wonder, could the new water pump have gone south so quickly?

railroaderone

Stan check the pressure on the power steering pump if it's to high it will make a different sound than a low fluid condition.

Rainy day here but at least it in the 60s.

​​​​​​​Be careful

Mexstan

Thanks Clint for the suggestion.

Update;
Even although the idler bearing seemed to be OK, decided to change it. For all of $2:70 that was cheap insurance, plus is very easy to change. The bearing place not far from me had it in stock. Also installed a new HD belt that I already had. So far no more noise. As I did the two at the same time, have no idea what the root cause of the problem was. Will take it for a short drive after lunch and a longer drive tomorrow morning.

Tip; For those of you that are going to change a serpentine belt, you may find that it keeps on falling away from one pulley while you line it up with another pulley. A little trick that I do is to do a rough alignment of the belt, then hook a light bungee cord on it near the alternator and the other end on to the hood latch. That keeps just a slight tension on the belt and makes it very easy to align everything without any help. Then the last thing to do is to push back on the belt tensioner and slip the belt over the alternator pulley while at the same time removing the bungee cord. Easy and simple one person job.

sherod

Thanks for the tip Stan! Now that you mentioned it I want to smack myself for not thinking about such before this!

Haven't had much time to stop and visit. Seems like everyone is still too wet, too cold, just right, fixing things, breaking things and so forth. Glad all is right with the world!

railroaderone

Another day another dollar went with wife to a reduced cost dental program so she could get some severe problems fixed got told I made to much from my retirement for her to qualify. So I'm trying to get the insurance to do what they are supposed to do.

Glad you got your truck straightened out Stan

Less than 44 hours now till the end of an Error

​​​​​​​Fresh coffee and donuts on the counter

Fronty Owner

fan clutch?

Mexstan

Good morning peoples. Another wonderful day is dawning down here in Paradise. According to the forecast today is supposed to be nicer than yesterday and yesterday was pretty nice.

Coffee and ph00 is ready.

Have only driven about 60 miles since fixing that mysterious squeal in my truck, but so far, so good.

Going to try to stay home today and catch up on a bunch of work that I have been leaving until "tomorrow". Let's see if "tomorrow" becomes "today".

Ciao.

railroaderone

Hi no coffee STAN you were the last here so I'll make some back to working on wife's car latter