Poor advice about what to put on a belt to keep it from squealing.

I can't believe what a friend wrote to another friend on FB about what to do. He told her to put a dab of oil on the belt. Boy I wanted to smack him upside his head for the most stupid piece of advice.

Reply to
m6onz5a
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In a counterintuitive way, it might work, similar to how a leaky axle seal can make your brakes grabby. But I still wouldn't do it - petrochemicals and rubber aren't meant to mix.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Wouldn't put any kind of dressing on a belt. Fix the core problem.

Reply to
Vic Smith

I wholly concur; check for glazed, contaminated, damaged, misaligned, incorrect ... belt or pulleys.

Reply to
Heron

um, by "..." you meant "tension" but just momentarily forgot how to spell it, right? 'cos that's the #1 cause of belt squeal. as any self-appointed book-learned "expert" knows.

Reply to
jim beam

you're right that it doesn't fix the problem, but it will stop the squeal!

Reply to
jim beam

as usual, "nate", you're utterly clueless as to what "rubber" is, and even more so as to what belt manufacturers use. hint #1: there is more than one type of "rubber". hint #2: your engine uses various rubbers specifically /because/ they are oil resistant.

now, given #1 and #2, do you think belt manufacturers actually ignore the same information other manufacturers use to their advantage???

Reply to
jim beam

I use silicone spray. Not always a permanent fix.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

i can't imagine it /ever/ being a permanent fix.

squealing belts need to get fixed before the slippage, what is almost always the cause, wears/damages the belt. apart from the hideous noise, the avoidance of belt failure and thus getting stuck at the side of the road would, i'd have thought, be incentive enough to get it sorted.

Reply to
jim beam

does the same strategy work with oil pressure sensors? you sound like someone who might just know.

Reply to
jim beam

silicone spray is just as bad as using oil.

A lot of the new serpentine belts are now made of material closer to what tires are made from. The belts of today can now look perfectly good, but they can be worn out. They now have belt gauges that can check to see if the belt needs replacing.

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That and the belt tensioner need to be checked along with cleaning the pulleys.

Chas

Reply to
m6onz5a

Or, in lieu of that, maybe PTFE or graphite. If that fails, completely loosen the tensioner or better yet remove the belt altogether, that's a rock solid guarantee to stop belt squeal.

Reply to
Heron

unlike a v-belt, multi-ribbed belts cannot be measured for wear by simply trying to check the profile as that "tool" supposes. this is because the belt conforms to the grooves on the wheels anyway and the wheel grooves will keep it to the same profile as it wears.

wear is evidenced by cracking, excessive shine and exposed fibers. particularly on the rib face, if fiber is in any way visible, the friction coating has worn off and it needs to be replaced asap.

you're absolutely correct that idler/tension wheels need to be checked. it's not uncommon for their bearings to be worn/defective. when the idler is loosened for checking, it appears to spin freely, but in fact, the bearing inner is locked and spinning on the bolt. when re-tightened, the belt will again squeal as the bad bearing resistance will cause the belt to slip, even when correctly tensioned. always remove idlers and check bearing operation by hand.

Reply to
jim beam

oy, a retard learning a "trick" from other retards - either trying to put false words into someone else's mouth, or not reading properly. given what we know of you though nate, we know which one it is.

btw, how's that killfile working out for ya?

Reply to
jim beam

I'm sure that they attempt to make the belts oil resistant.

Are you actually saying, however, that you think that an oily belt is no worse off than a clean one? incroyable.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Not sure what you're trying to accomplish here, but it doesn't seem like a good idea. The silicone will stop the noise but encourage more slip. Now silicone spray *is* fantastic on door gaskets, just don't get it on the paint or if you ever need body work your body and paint guy will cuss you six ways to Sunday. It also is fantastic for rejuvenating old squishy-rubber spoilers as found on German cars.

I will say this, however. I had the serp. belt replaced on my Jeep a while back - I had it replaced because I had a death in the family and was running out of time to complete my list of maintenance items, so I let a pro do the trans fluid change and serp belt. (I'd already changed the diffs and t-case myself, but needed the vehicle ready to go on short notice and didn't have time before the weekend - when I needed to be out of town - to get it done.) Anyway, it felt tight to me - possibly too tight - but slipped, squeaked, squealed. Bought a krikit and tensioned it myself to the low side of the spec, no problem. So both I and a pro wrench thought the belt was tight enough by educated thumb (mine at least being educated on v-belts however) but in reality it was still undertensioned. The serpentine, poly-rib, whatever you want to call them belts need a LOT of tension to work right.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Maybe on your Jeep, but that's not a rule. GM spring-loaded arm tensioners don't put much pressure on serpentine belts. Not nearly the pressure I used to put on accessory v-belts with a tire iron before -locking them down. The arm tensioners will jump around when their bearings go bad. I've replaced a couple. I haven't heard a belt squeal on any I've had, and very few on v-belts when I had cars with them. Only car I've heard serpentine belt squeal was my daughter's '01 Eclipse. Harmonic balancer went bad. It was hard to pinpoint that one. Wasn't me, my son did it.

Reply to
Vic Smith

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