My 4.0 ohv engine is making very bad squealing/chirping noises and I don't Know where they are comming from. The noise varies directly with the rpm and does not stop when the engine is warm.

Things we tried:
new serpentine belt
2 new steering pumps
alternator
idler pulley
belt tensioner
We ran it with no fan to no success
We ran it with no belt and the noise stopped

Could it be the water pump(which is not leaking) or the ac compressor(which makes no difference if it is off or on)?
Any ideas?

 

take the belt off and spin the fan by hand. My truck did this also, the fan clutch was bad witch inturn made the bearings in the waterpump pully go bad. And if that is not it take the alternator off and have advanced auto parts or auto zone or a good shop bench test it, to see if any of the bearings have gone bad.

 

I totaly removed the fan+clutch and had the alternator bench tested to no avail.

 

how about the idler pulley

 

Got a new idler pulley and belt tensioner.

 

Take a hose and lightly spray the belt while the engine is running.. if it stops squeeking for a little bit while the water is being sprayed on.. then its your belt, and you should try scraping the grooves with a hard brush wire scraper (buy them at any hardware store) and clean out all the grooves.. then get yoruself a nice gatorback.. that should help :-)

 

I'll try that, it seems there is mre than one type of squeak now.

 

ive got a similar sound but mine is a howling not a squealing sound ive been trying to figure my problem out too.

 

sounds like the A/C clutch is 1/2 way engaging and slipping......<--been there done that......does it do it all the time, or when you have the HVAC controls set to where the A/C compressor runs

 

mine will do it every now and then but if i hit the gas peddle it will go away. it sounds like its coming from somewere by the alternator.

 

Take a bar of soap and hold it under the grooved side of the belt between the alternator and your AC clutch.. make sur eyou keep yoru hand away from teh fan.. and let it rub for a few seconds.... see if it helps the squeek a little bit.

 

replace your idler pulley and it will go away...

 

thanks ill try that.

 

The squeak/squel/chirp turned out to be the belt itself. We put on a new belt when
we replaced the head gaskets but it never made noise untill 50miles later so we did not expect the belt to be the culprit. We saved the old belt since it still looked good so we ran it with the old belt as a last effort and had success. I will be looking into a gator belt for the fall.

 

Yeah.. was thinking that form the symptoms you described as well.

I had this same run in happen when I purchased my truck and the first rains of the season started.. replaced everything that was cheap, until I tried those couple home remedie's I mentioned above.. and found it reall was the belt, the gatorback took it all away though =)

 

I just had this happen to me! The truck would squeal super bad off and on, i thought it was the belt so i got a gatorback then it stoped... For a total of 2 days, i then got the new tensioner with a new pulley , this worked for about 2 min, i then got a new idler pulley, this helped sort of, i was so bummed. After that i found the final fix to this crapy problem!! The belt tensioner has a metal **** that fits into this grove deal, but it has some play maby 1/4 inch , Once the belt is back on But the tensioner bolt has not been torqed down pull the pulley up with another socket wrench to max out the belt tension as this is done finish tightning the bolt on the tensioner asembly keeping the belt at max tension. This worked for me ! The noise was just the belt being a hair to loose and sliping on my Alt pulley. I think that i may add a crush washer betwen the tensioner and the engine block to keep the belt from saging back down .
ps: I can't spell , but its even worse when you are writing this using your cell phone lol (i phone) !! "I dont own a computer" sorry
hope some of this helps!

 

I know this is an old post...but...FYI

I went through all these steps and replaced all the components listed. I still had the squeal. This includes two new belts (including a Gates) and a trip to the Ford Dealer.

After all these tries, we narrowed it down. When pouring some water on the belt at the compressor pump, the squeal went away immediately, but only for a little bit. This narrowed down the suspects to the water pump pully/fan assembly and the harmonic balancer.

We had noticed a very slight (and I mean VERY slight) discrepancy in the harmonic balancer rotation. With this new observation, we looked more closely at the harmonic balancer. It had barely noticeable cracking in the rubber ring.

We replaced the harmonic balancer and the squeal was gone completely.

When I was using the forums to try to track down the possible cause, I think I saw only one or maybe two comments about the harmonic balancer maybe being the problem. I am not a mechanic. I am curious why there are so many comments on the other serpentine belt components (which for sure can go bad and squeal) and so few about suspecting the harmonic balancer.

In any case, if you have serpentine belt squeal, check your harmonic balancer carefully!

 

I have had the dreaded squeak, changed pulley, Belt cleaned everything,,I will try this, THanks