Squeaky drive belt/bearing?

[c.morewood]

Symptoms: Squeaks on 1st start then stops afer about 2 mins.
I hear it occasionally when accelerating in 1st and 2nd.
Is it likely to be the belt (1000miles old) or could it be a bearing somewhere?
I thought it might be rubbing on some debris of the old belt and it may have left traces in one of the ribs in the drive wheel or A/C compressor, so I gave it a good spray with the jetwash which cured it for a little while, but now its back.
I'm thinking it might be the tensioner not exerting enough pressure on the belt.. although it seemed to have enough power in it when we changed the belt a couple of months ago.
Any other ideas?

[Peter.N.]

It will be the belt slipping on the alternator, its more likely that the belt needs replacing than the tensioner, they get shiny with age, I would certainly do that first. Just read your post properly and see you have changed the belt, is the tensioner pulling it up tight? If not the belt may be to long, I have had this problem and found the only way you can get the correct one is to measure the old one.

Peter

[c.morewood]

Its about 2in shorter than the old one Peter!!.. that was really stretched.
Yes practically new.. I'd felt sure that the squeak would stop with a new belt.. Its certainly a lot quieter, but hasn't stopped.

[RichardW]

How old is the crank pulley? Mine was doing this when it needed changing. When fitting the new belt, did you adjust the eccentric so that the pointer on the auto tensioner was in the right place?

[c.morewood]

How old is the crank pulley? Mine was doing this when it needed changing. When fitting the new belt, did you adjust the eccentric so that the pointer on the auto tensioner was in the right place?

New pulley Richard.. No idea about the eccentric.. I did it in the dark at the side of the road.. so was just glad to get home.
What is the eccentric and how is it adjusted?

Ta

[RichardW]

The 'other' roller on the belt route, is in fact an eccentric tensioner. If you look at the top of the auto tensioner, there is mark scribed across it (above the hole you use to pin it back), and this should align with a similar mark on the mount when under tension. You can access the eccentric from under the wheel arch - it's got a bolt in in (6mm allen maybe?) and a square hole. If you back off the allen screw, then you can put a square drive in the square hole and rotate then tensioner to tighten the belt. I can't remember if you can manage to do this AND look at the alignment mark on the auto tensioner at the same time

[c.morewood]

Sounds complicated!! Its supposed to rain tomorrow.. I'll get her in the garage, print off your instructions and see what I can do.. Thanks Richard.
I used a rachet strap wrapped round the tensioner then up behind the engine mount to enable me to change the belt.. it was dark and with only a head torch and limited tools.. I couldn't see a lot!!

[c.morewood]

Couldn't see any mark on the auto tensioner at all Richard.. however I did manage to rotate the ecentric roller till it was at its maximum... still squeaks..
So I spent the next hour or so examining the belt and rollers with the engine running and off.
With the engine running the belt has a small 2mm or so lateral movement on the eccentric roller.. can't figure out where this is coming from as everything else looks in line. (this is where the squeak is coming from as it stopped immediately when given a small spray of wd40)
The tension roller has a vertical movement of about 1-2mm and on stopping the belt I can see a doming in the middle of the belt where the writing is. There doesn't appear to be anything underneath in the ribs or in the groves of the pump to explain the doming.
So I'm thinking I might need another eccentric roller.
Any thoughts?
Oh and also the crank pulley which was replaced 1000 miles ago, seems to be circular on the outside but the sunken area, where the nut goes through is definately not, off center by 1-2mm. It looks strange but I made sure the outside was running true.

[c.morewood]

Problem solved.
The squeak/squeal was getting louder and all the time..I figured it was a bearing somewhere..hoping it wasn't the pump or alternator or worse, I bought a Mapco Tensioner and a new Continental belt, rather than the Dayco belts I had previously used. I also bought a stethoscope to try to identify source. I eliminated all sources but the belt and the tensioner, so went ahead and replaced both. I found that the old belts had melted rubber into the grooves of all the rotors so spent about an hour making sure each was very clean. That may indeed have been the source of the squeak, but I replaced the tensioner anyway.. now she's lovely and silent again.
Rear suspension pipes next week.. Rear brake pipees next month and then the big job .. The clutch 278K on the original isn't bad ..but I'm going to replace it when I want to rather than when the car tells me I have to!!
Hope this helps someone.
Chris

[c.morewood]

Update..
The new belt and tensioner stopped the squeak for a while .. however it returned a couple of weeks ago.
I spent this morning cleaning the belt and looking at the various pulleys and cleaning them as best I could with a wire brush.
I did find a small stone embedded in the belt and some melted rubber squashed into the grooves, however the main squeak now, is coming from the A/C compressor bearings.
Are they replaceable? Has anyone done it? Or is it easier to get a replacement unit? Its a Delphi 5290 The car is in almost daily use so I'm thinking replacement might be easier.
Can I run it without the A/C compressor in the loop? (the A/c hasn't worked for a couple of years) Or does the compressor foul the belt run?
What size belt would I need?
Sorry about all the questions.

I found 1 on Ebay at over £1000 its a bit out of my price range
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-AC-COMPRE ... 417b502bb8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[c.morewood]

Ok, I'll post this in the hope that this may be helpful so someone.
You can't replace the 1750 belt (with a/c) with the 1450 belt (without a/c ), to take the a/c compressor out of the loop, unless you put an extra roller as the belt fouls the eccentric roller. However you can use an 1140 or 1150 (even an 1130 will work but you have to run the wrong side of the eccentric roller to get it to fit) to run the engine without the a/c compressor. It doesn't give as good a drive to the alternator as the pressure is shared with the hydraulic pump. But, this mod will give me some time to remove the compressor and hopefully fix the bearing. If I can find a bearing remover to rent.