Hi all.....as usual, I appreciate everyone's help out here - you guys give great info/advice!

I own a 99' 3.9L V6 4x4 Dakota........I'm at the 90,000 mile mark, and I recently noticed a squeaking coming from the engine as soon as I start er' up. I opened the hood, and the squeaking seems to be in perfect rhythm w/ the belt rotation. The squeaking has gotten worse over the past few weeks, and it's pretty loud. I alsonoticed that after I drive for a while, and shut off the engine andstart it up within a few hours, the squeaking isn't nearly as bad. I've never changed the belt, but it appears to be fine.....the indexing arrow on the tensioner is within the proper range, so that looks ok.....I very carefully checked to see if there was any give on the pulleys, and there wasn't any give EXCEPT aVERY slight amount on the tensioner pulley.....not sure if that is normal......any ideas? Thanks!

 

.....forgot to mention that I just had a new water pump installed 3 months ago....no leaks so I don't think that is the problem....

 

its probly the belt if you have 90k on it. but mine used to make a squealling noise and after I put on a new belt to bypass the a/c. I noticed that it was my idler pully. there should be no play in any of them. if there is, then thats your problem

 

....I guess that leads me to another question.....just by the design of the tensioner pulley (it's kind of just 'floating' out there compared to the other pulleys), it seems as though a little wiggle/give would be present in the tensioner pulley....luckily, none of the other pulleys wiggle at all....so if I understand you correctly, the tensioner pulley should be everybit as rock solid as the other pulleys? Thanks for your help!

 

the pullyits selffor the tensioner shouldnt have play in it. but the swing arm for the tensioner might.

 

....thanks! It actually appears that it's the tensioner pulley which has some give....I think I'll remove the belt and rotate all the pulleys to see if that reveals anything further! Thanks again for the info!

 

is it cold outside wen this happens? How's the weather there? Cuz I had squeekin prob. But it was an on and off sorta thing...so it's one of the pulleys. When it's warm tho it's fine.

My brother had a '97 and he said he had the same prob during winter.

 

Hi Rakaric.....yeah, it's usually in the high 30's to low 40's in the morning this time of year.....it is definitely more of a problem in the morning.....in fact, after I ran it this morning, 6 hours passed until I started it again (60 degrees in the afternoon)and it didn't really squeak much at all.

 

Did you open up the hood while it's running and try to listen of where exactly it's comin from? I think mine was by the alternator, but I couldn't tell cuz...well my truck like to play games with me...it only squeeks a lot when I am not trying to figure out what it is. When I finally opened up the hood...it was quiet. it's a pos sometimes, lol.

 

Rakaric.....yeah, I opened the hood......was really difiicult to tell where the sound is coming from.....this weekend I'm gonna remove the belt, put on a new one, see what that does......if it's still squeaking after that I'm gonna see if the tensioner is working properly......I have a suspicion that the spring has worn out.