This may have been posted sometime on this forum, but I am going to ask again. I get a squeal from the engine when I kick my truck into passing gear. I.E When I get down on the 'ol five fo'. It sounds like the serpentine belt, but I've checked it, and have had the ford dealer check it for maintenance. Both of us agree the belt itself is in good condition. It's not to loose nor tight, and everything seems to be good under the hood. Didn't mean for that to rhyme.

Any ideas. It's not the tranny or anything after the engine compartment, the only thing I can possibly think of is when you get down on the engine, as we all know he engine can lean back and it pulls the belt tight and when it goes to change gears the pulley turns faster than the belt is going at the momment and it rubs the belt causing a squeal.

Just my 0.02, but I am def far from a mechanic. My ears are open for any ideas or thoughts. Appreciate it..

 

Check Harmonic balancer....mine was falling apart and it squealed just like a belt really badly.

 

I had something similar a year or so ago on my truck. I found it to be a bad bearing on the idler pulley and the tensioner pulley was pretty rough. The easy way to tell is take the belt off and spin the pulleys you may need a stethoscope to hear it good or take them off the are pretty easy to get off and "feel" the bearing turn in your finger. It should feel smooth. Mine was somewhat intermittent making the squealing noise but once i got the pulley off and checked it i couldn't believe it was not worse. The bearing was totally shot.


Josh

 

Mine does it also if i floor it sometimes and it shifts hard. i had a friend who has an 2003 fx4 and his does the same and has been for 100,000 miles so its nothing serious (most likely)

 

Get a Gatorback belt. Schucks/Cragen/Autozone/Troyer

 

Mine too, its only done it since the superchips. About 34k now.

 

Why does a belt squeal?
Loss of surface friction between the belt and the pullies, it is driving; maybe?
Here is the usuall reasons, given no faults exist.
ONE belt drives the water pump, the power steering, the alternator, the A/C compressor all from the crank pulley.
All these driven devices have large amounts inertia energy imparted by the motor crank pulley as they are driven.
This says once they are at a relitive given rate of speed and suddenly that rate is changed, belt slip can occurr either at attempts to speed up or slow down.
Most often the transmission's sudden load shifting on the motor, changes the crank speed faster than one or more of these devices can respond to.
You cannot tell anything about a belt for this condition by just looking at it.
Put a new belt on and make sure the tenioner is loading the belt enough and no pullies grooves are worn from belt slip that has been going on too long.

 

My 97 4.6 started with a small squeal a couple months ago, and its gotten worse. Seems to be when the ac comp is kicked in.

I am going to change the belt, but any other suggestions?

I think I changed the idler and tensioner a year or two ago...

 

Changed the belt with a Goodyear belt. Could not find a Gatorback belt locally. The chirping is better but still chirps. When I had the belt off I spun the idler pullys with my fingers and they turned easily and smooth. I will be installing a tensioner this weekend. Hope it's a fix.

 

After installing mods on my pickup, the belt squeeled a bit on down and upshift. Gatorback fixed it. Try also breaking the glaze on your smoothe pullys with a fine emory cloth.

 

Don't bother wasting your money by throwing parts at it. Just get a Gatorback belt somehow, some way, maybe order over the internet, whatever. My 2001 has been squeeking like that since it was BRAND NEW.