Recently my power steering went out so I replaced the pump. That same day I tried recharging my A/C since it stopped blowing cold but it didn't fix it. On my way home my belt started making a high pitched squealing especially when I accelerated. I've been researching and thought I might have gotten antifreeze on it so I cleaned it with soap and water and put the belt back on. The squealing wasn't as bad but it is still very loud. I sprayed some belt conditioner on it and it also helped a little but not much. Am I missing something? I thought it might be the tensioner but wouldn't the belt be slipping if that was going bad?

 

just cuz u said ur ac wasnt blowing cold, does it blow cold now? if not then ight be th bearing in the a/c compressor ur hearin not ur belt.

 

The squealing is tell you that it IS slipping.....

Check the tensioner, and idler pulleys, make sure the spin freely, and there is no binding in the tensioner itself. While the belt is off, give the other pulleys a spin too, just in case. Take it from there.

Did you clean the pulleys off when you cleaned the belt??

 

did you replace the belt? make sure that all ur pullies have the same amount of grooves and u belt matches.... good luck

 

take a bar of soap and with the engine running put the soap on the the belt, do it to both sides, if the noise goes away then its the belt if not its something else. take the belt off and spin each pulley by hand listening for a rough or grinding noise. you will be able to isolate the problem this way. this is how i diagnose all my belt noise problems. if it is the belt still check the pulleys you may have more then one problem. hope this helps

 

Mine started doing this on Friday and it turned out my tensioner was bad. With the belt off make sure the tensioner returns completely. Mine was only going back about 3/4 of the way. replaced the tensioner and all is well.