Okay so had some squeeling under the hood, figured it was serpentine belt. Relaced that, good for about 10 minutes, started again. Anyway, this keeps happening, I have replaced the tensioner, idler, belt multiple times, every pulley but the water pump ( water pump was replaced a year ago) and the Harmonic Balancer? Tried to figure out what the sound was and i think its the water pump.

Went to go buy the water pump, started bull****ting with the the parts guy and he says something about the harmonic balancer? I didn't even think of that, but could this be it? I need a tutorial if someone has one on how to replace it, or give your input on what might be wrong. THANKS!!

 

start of with the simple stuff. spray the idler pulley with some PB Blaster and let it penetrate. Have you tried using some belt dressing?

 

i doubt that its the balancer, unless its just falling apart or something. check alternator, a/c, and p/s pulleys.

 

I bought a 97 Ram 1500 4X4 with the 5.2 and a manual trans earlier today.. After putting 100 miles on it I started hearing the slightest 'chirp' coming from under the hood.. Seemed to be the belt.

I sprayed it down with belt dressing and the chirping went away.. Next time I started the truck it started squealing VERY loudly.. I shut it off and decided to deal with it tomorrow. I plan on spraying all the pulley centers with PB and replacing the belt. I hope that will take care of it~

 

stupid question, but did you follow the instructions. they are specific. take the belt off, clean it and try again. The only belt dressing I use is pyroil. it works great for me. If your gonna buy a new belt, get a gator back belt. they lessen the noise coming from the engine.

 

I bought the new belt this morning.. they didn't have the gatorback in stock so I got the Duralast version at Autozone.

I took off the old belt, sprayed brake parts cleaner on the pulley surfaces that make contact with the belt, wiped everything down and then lubed each pulley center with WD40.

I put on the new belt and fired it up to silence.. Everything is nice and quiet now.


While the belt was off I spun the alt, PS, idler and the top center one that is just a carrier.. that one was making a slight chirp when I spun it by hand, so I'm assuming that's where my big squeal was coming from.


Nice to have it so quiet now

 

It's often the simple answer that evades us when searching for a solution. Glad you got that fixed.