Cause of noisey serpentine belt

[007]

I replaced the drive belt on my 86 T Type back in Feb with Gates part# K060640. At the time I checked the idler pulley and it was fine. Today I get in the car and the belt is squeaking away. All the pulleys are fine. Sprayed some belt dressing on the belt and all got quiet. Is there a better quality belt brand I might want to try?

 

[Chris142]

Since you sprayed dressing on it it's ruined now.the gates is a top notch belt.maybe a pully is out of alignment or a piece of dirt got in it?

 

[Rand]

Belt dressing is only for V-belts and causes slipping.

You need to replace the belt and clean the pulleys.
You can try a different brand belt.

How exactly did you determine all the belt pulleys are "fine" at hundreds/thousands of rpm?

 

[raytseng]

if your main concern is the noise. you can consider the gatorback.

But I agree if it's making noise and you added dressing; then you've ruined the belt.

 

[007]

Originally Posted By: Rand
Belt dressing is only for V-belts and causes slipping.

You need to replace the belt and clean the pulleys.
You can try a different brand belt.

How exactly did you determine all the belt pulleys are "fine" at hundreds/thousands of rpm?


Never said I checked the pulleys now.

 

[007]

Guess I will look into a different brand belt and see what happens. I will also recheck the idler pulley and clean up the grooves in the others.

 

[86cutlass307]

It has been my experience over the years that after 80-100K miles of running together (belt & pulleys) they should all be replaced at the same time. If the miles aren't very high you can get away with belt only but you have to clean the pulleys really well with Brake Clean - thoroughly. Bearings wear out and fray edges of brand new belts with wobble/vibration, or the new belt doesn't mate with the running path on the old pulleys and - SNAP. It used to be that V belts would break and fall to the ground and not tear anything up under the hood. Serpentine belts have the potential to take ALOT of expensive stuff out when they go...ask me how I know. My Tacoma V6 has 3 idler and 1 tensioner pulley; just a crazy long belt path...I dusted off a few choice words on that recent belt/pulley job, but I have no worries while on the road.

The old saying goes, "You never have the money or time to do it right the first time, but seem to find the money and time to do it over."