Yeah, you guessed it.. time for me to replace my belt tensioner assembly.. just thought I woudl rant, because I jsut replaced my belt 2 weeks ago.. sounded great for a bit, then some chirping happened again.. just this morning replaced the loer tensioner wheel.. and that only solved the squeeking at idle problem.. and under load (higher rpms) the belt squeeks again. Sort of halfway annoying, thats for sure...


But yeah, thought I would just randomly rant and say jsut how much I hate it when vehicles chirp and squeek..!

 

Your mis-spellins add to the effect..

 

my rig has 85000 miles and im on my fourth tensioner. The first replacement i bought from ford and it lasted 3 months. i got the next one at auto zone for about half the price and i have been running it fine for over a year now. and i also had ford replace one when the truck was still under warranty. it seems to me that autozone has better parts than genuine ford does.

 

125k on the original.

It makes noise but IDGF. Let it scream.

 

Ahh, I had been up all night at that point, hence the horrendous spelling errors.. but I have to wait till tomorrow to pick up the tensioner. Would be sort of neat if they made some type of aftermarket tensioner.. going good is all I ever plan on doing *sigh* :-p

 

Bah, it has to be the dang Water Pump... just got a replacement bearing put into my idler pulley, put that back on.. squeek is still there.. and prior to all of this happenign I saw coolant leakage happening for several days coming form under the vehicle.. draining from around the same area as the water pump.. so ugh, yeah.. dangit lol :-p another couple hundred bucks into my engine.. was hoping to use that money for an underdrive pulley or somethin akin to that.


Anyone happen to have any hints or tips on getting the water pump replaced in a reasonable amount of time? :-)

 

I was just bustin yer chops. I caint spel my way out of a wet paper bag!

As far as the pump. Our rule in powertrain engineering is: "no drops on the floor" If your seeing coolant the seal is bad. Over time this will start to wash the grease out of the bearing and then life gets fun.

My 4.0L pump looks very straight fwd. Once the fan is off it would'nt take a 1/2 hour at most to do the swap. So if your still running a mech fan, filling fluid, and swapping the pump, I'd guess it's about a 2hr job provide the fan isn't too much of a problem.

Rich

 

Good to go, I havent had much experience pulling the fan off of this engine before.. but from the various searches I put up on the forums.. it shouldnt be all too hard to do! Thanks a bunch, I was literally just reading through the Hayes manual about the seal going bad if coolant starts leaking out. Another reason why the chirping got worse and worse over the last 2 weeks.



Well.. sadly I dont really have the time to fix anything right now because of work, and my lack of sleep last night.. hopefully I can find some time tommorow or the day after.. no way I'm going to drive it around with it making this much noise.. friggin embarrassing!!

 

Im at 97k and im on my 3rd

 

haha.. get this, I figured I would get a quote on prices if I brought it to the dealership service shop.. todl them I already had a new pump, and woudl supply coolant and anythign else they needed.. they quoted me $360 o.o Yeah, I think I would rather spend 3-4 hours on it myself and buy myself an underdrive pulley with that chunk of change

 

OMFG, take it out it hurts.

IDK if these prices are better than locally for you.

http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/x,ca...,parttype,2208

Personally I hate yoyozone. Id rather give ups/fedex/usps the money to ship then buy from them. Prices work out a tad cheaper even after shipping compared to teh z0n3.

Id suggest doing a tstat at the same time. Maybe even new hoses. Whats another 30 bucks compared to 360.

 

Yep, I plan on going all out.. tomorrow//today is paycheck day, so Ill deposit that in, and go get a new thermostat and hoses, do the thing the right way.

Ugh, I went all around, replaced the bearing in my idler pulley, replaced the entire tension assembly.. and I suppose some new hoses and TStat wouldnt hurt :D

 

So.. bah.. I just finished replacing my water pump, and teh squeek is STILL there.. brand new 2 week old serpentine belt on it, wondering if as a last ditch I should try getting another one of those perhaps, go gatorback from autozone and hopefully it'll go away. Its dang aggrivatin, and more then willing to replace anything in the engine myself considering it costs over 70 bucks jsut to have the dang dealership check it over :-p

 

From the way your describing this it sounds like you have the same exact problem i just had. After a bunch of trial and error it turned out to be the ac compressor. It was slowly leaking and getting fluid in the belt. It would only chirp or squeal at idle when it was cold out or raining. But then when I would get on the gas the thing would squeal until around 50mph then the truck would downshift and it would stop. Maybe you have the same problem. Check the frame rails on your drivers side behind the tire and see if there is any leakage of any type. That's how i finally figured out what it was. Hope this helps.

 

That might eb it.. its DEFINATLY worse with the RPM's, and when its "warmed up" a tad the initial idle squeak goes away.. only to be replaced as soon as I start bumping the RPM's a bit... havent noticed it at high speed.. as by then I jsut turn the radio up past the loudness of teh squeak so it doesnt botehr me in the cab anymore :-)

If I may ask.. how did you end up fixing it? Buy a new compressor an dinstall it yourself.. or did you have to pay the bucks and get it done 'professionaly'? =) And.. if possible, about how much do you think it would run?



EDIT:

A/C Compressor w/ Clutch - Remfd
w/ FS10 A/C Compressor @To Insure System Performance & as a Condition of Warranty, a new Filter Drier / Accumulator & Orifice Tube must be used when Replacing Compressor. We Recommend the Condenser, Evaporator, Hoses & Expansion Devices be Replaced when Condition is Suspect.@ TEM
253135
$211.00
Core $27.00



A/C Compressor w/ Clutch - New
w/ FS10 A/C Compressor @To Insure System Performance & as a Condition of Warranty, a new Filter Drier / Accumulator & Orifice Tube must be used when Replacing Compressor. We Recommend the Condenser, Evaporator, Hoses & Expansion Devices be Replaced when Condition is Suspect.@ TEM
273135

$293.00



Ouch Looks like my underdrive pulley is going to be waiting a while

 

Ill admit i took the easy way out. I frequently travel to Hazleton PA home of the biggest junk yard on the east coast. I pulled three compressors being that they were pretty cheap. I had the system professionally recovered being that it is hazardous and had them flush the system while they were at it. I then just replaced the compressor, double checked my work and had it recharged. most expensive thing was the recharging. All together i spent around 100 dollars. That sound annoyed the **** outta me til i fixed it.

 

Hmm, havent ever done that type of work before to be honest... since it is working with high and low pressures through the AC, is it as simple as somehow purging the line allowing you to bolt it in yourself and hook everythign up, then having someone recharge it for you? Woudl love to look for the cheapest way to do this, and hopping into a junkyard sounds like a good option.. we've got a u-pull-it out here that just recently changed names, and Im guessing thats my best stop.

 

if you have the system recovered (emptied) at a garage you will be able to simply remove the ac compressor being that there will be no pressure in the lines. Then just go back to a garage and have it recharged and youll be good to go. Just double check the compressor you get from the junk yard and make sure there is no traces of oil anywhere on it because I found more of them that were bad then good.

 

Might almsot be worth it to buy a refurbished one after I get the lines purged, should only take a short while to get it hooked in.. I know its perfectly safe to drive a purged compressor around, it jsut wont do anything.. then run it out and have it charged back up again later... I highly doubt I'll bring it to the ford service area to do that, they charge too dang much for jsut about anything

 

Is the compressor really leaking? Or is the clutch on the way out?

 

I was actually jsut looking that up on Autozone, I'm about to give it a once over on the entire system and see if there is any signs.. its been raining the past week so its been rather difficult to tell if anything is wet under the hood after the truck has been driving around a bit.

 

i remember reading on here a while back that someone was having some trouble with some shaft that was leaking on their compressor. Cant find the thread though. Mine was leaking slowly from the front and side. But it was really only noticeable on the side of the compressor and the part where it was dripping on the framerails. It should be noticeable if you look hard enough regardless of rain. Refrigerant has a lubricating oil mixed with it to condition the seals and what not. I ended up seeing it on my frame because the dirt was starting to stick to it right behind the upper ball joint.

 

Well, good news.. I found a local know-it-all for vehicle problems, he took a look at it and sprayed it with a water bottle... this gave the belt temporary friction to hold onto the pulleys and the squeaking went away.. so he confirmed that it was no type fo pulley doing it. The problem is that the car dealer who origionally sold the vehicle, had loaded the pulleys up with enough tacking to actually hinder the problem, so when it gets warm enough, my belt started heating it up, melting it, and sticking to the belt, causing the belt to go prematurly bad (only after about a thousand miles too).

The fix for this (temporary until I scoot into town to get a gatorback) is to grab a bar of soap and apply it to the top and the underside of the belt while its running.. this works like a charm.. but only lasts a few days until you can get a new belt.


The permanent part of the fix that I have done already, is you get a really stiff wire brush, and scrape out all of the pulleys. The engine must be off and the fan belt and air hose need to eb out of the way to do this, and it takes roughly 30-45 minutes give or take.. depends on how tired your arms get from scraping the tines through the pulleys. This causes it to melt the waxy tacky crap and it sticks to the tines, where you wipe it off with a cloth (in my case, an old sock lying in the garage) and it scores the grooves and gives you clean metal to get a good grip.

After you finish that, you go get yourself a good new belt.. in this case, Im about to leave to Autozone to pick up a new Gatorback and get rid of my stock Nappa crap that they gave me.



Theres the fix, and I sure hope this helps anyone involved... gives a good testing procedure to see if its the belt or the pullies.. spray water on the belt, if the sound goes away, that means you need to clean out the grooves and get a new belt

 

Good to hear its a cheap and easy fix for you.

 

Thanks a bunch for the information too :-) I'm about to hop outside and give a second recording of my exhaust.. now that my chirping is gone... been meaning too since I've given my exhaust a good thousand miles and its nice and settled, has a nice growl to it now :-)