A few weeks back i put in a new alternator in my Max by myself from looking at the how to thread on here. While changing it, i decided to change the belt also...couldn't hurt. Now that its cool outside...when i start her up, she makes a loud screeching sound from that area..then it goes away when she warms up. What could this be? do i need to WD-40 something? i hate starting up my car...

 

try some belt dressing DO NOT USE WD-40. and maybe adjust tension on belts.

 

Belt dressing? hmm, hit up auto zone for that. how do you adjust the tension on the belt? just loosen the bolt?

 

Belt dressing is good for a quick/temp fix, but only use it if its really bad, because sometimes the belt dressing will make it sound worse for a week or 2.

 

You need to loosen the nut in the idler pulley then use the adjusting nut to either tighten or loosen the tension on the belt. Sounds strange to me that you'd ask how to adjust the tension on the belt. Did you replace the alternator and belt yourself without actually looseningt the belt?

 

i did all of that with the tension. I just didn't know how to loosen it seeing that all i did was take off the tensor pulley and then put it back on. Loosen the tensor pully to get ride of the noise is what im getting? if so i must have missed that somewhere.

What adjusting nut are you referring too?

 

Mike, you def. need to adjust the belt tension. What happens is it slips during start up and causes the sound you are hearing.

 

cool. Im going to play around with it and see what happens.

 

See picture below (image taken from page MA-13 of the FSM)

 

thanks for that...i appreciate it.

 

well, i checked everything and the noise is still there. could it be the alternator itself? i did get it from Autozone after all. might have to get another one from them? this is crazy. anyone have any idea's on what else could be causing this problem?

 

Did you actually adjust the belt tension to see if there is any noise change? if so, what did you do, tightened or loosened the belts?
Did you also spray belt dressing on the belts? No effect whatsoever?. If so, then definitely your problem is not the belts.

 

That's what i mean by doing the adjustments. I have trid loosening the belt...same noise. tightening the belt...same noise. put on another belt i had...same noise. i haven't gotten around to buying belt dressing. seems to be coming from by the alternator....

 

Sounds to me as if you didn't get the alignment just right. If the alternator is skewed a bit it will rub on the belt enough to make it squeal. Did you maybe miss a washer? You need to make sure that you got the alternator in correctly and mounted back up flush. It will not take much, very small amount of being off to give you the noise.

This is of course if you got the belt tight enough, and that is not your obvious problem.

 

Post a sound clip so we can hear. Is it only on start up?

 

Phantom-V, what's the veredict? Did you get rid of the noise? if you did, how?

 

He didn't have the belt tight enough...

 

Thanks. I just read that on one of his posts on a different thread. Judging by post #13 on this thread, that didn't have any effect.

 

yeah, apparently i had the belt tight...but it still could get tighter. so i just kept on turning until i heard the noise go away. didn't know to put it THAT tight. thanks everyone.

 

In adjusting belts and I am sure it is in the FSM, there would be a deflection criterion:

"x" amount of force and you will need to measure the deflection in mm which is given.

That's the right adjustment.

Too loose, will squeek and slip. Too tight will cause premature failure. You want to be in the sweet spot.

 

lol fail