KeithO

I recently completely my 100,000 PM on my Burb. One item I did was I replaced the serpentine belt. After doing this, I was getting a belt squeal at rpms above idle. Since I rarely drive this vehicle and my wife never mentioned/noticed the noise, I didn't make the association of the new belt and the noise. There was a month in between replacing the belt and knowing there was a noise.

After doing alot of checking, I think I found yet another area of confusion with this motor and the parts that the auto parts stores give out.

I have a 145amp alternator and the autoparts store gave me a 96 inch belt for my setup. I didn't consider the possibility of the wrong belt and assumed that I had a bad bearing but couldn't isolate the noise. So, I replaced the alternator, idler pulley and tensioner. Still had the noise.

I then did some more checking and found that there was a fair amount of slack in the belt. I replaced the 96 inch belt with a 95 inch belt and it appears that the squeal went away.

The 95 inch belt is pretty tight. I think the 95.5 inch belt would be a slightly better compromise and this was also available.

Maybe this will help someone avoid wasting time and money chasing the wrong thing.

in2pro

Good find, when ever possible bring your VIN in when getting parts, as this should give the parts person all the info they need when the part is looked up...