Squealing noise from timing cover area

95 Escort LX 1.9L. This just started a couple weeks ago and is getting steadily worse. Started out as a slight high pitch squeal/squeak only when the car was cold. Now it is a fairly loud noise whenever I start the car, and lasts for a couple minutes before it slowly fades away. It seems to be loudest right at the top of the timing belt cover. I replaced the timing belt/water pump about 30,000 miles ago. It does it at idle, and increases with engine speed. I peaked at the timing belt with the valve cover off, and what I could see of it looks OK. Would a failing water pump make a high pitch squealing sound, or maybe the tensioner? Or camshaft? Any other ideas?

Your accessory belt is in the same area... any chance it is that? If you can rule that out, perhaps it is the tensioner. Squirt a little lubricant onto the tensioner and see what happens.

Could be the water pump, tensioner pulley or idler pulley. I've had to replace all three. Sounds like a water pump though since the sound goes away when the coolant starts flowing. I agree with Mighty Mouse. Squirt WD40 on the tensioner pulley and see if it goes away. Then squirt the idler pulley and see what happens. The way I troubleshot my water pump recently was with the engine running (very carefully) put a pry bar up against the center of the water pump pulley. Put a little leverage against it and see what happens. If the pitch of the squeel changes or goes away then your water pump pulley is bad.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I took the accessories belt completely off and started the engine, the noise was still there. I then took the timing belt cover off, and started the engine again. Using a funnel and a piece of heater hose attached to it, I moved the other end of the hose around to listen and pinpoint the exact source. The source definately is the timing belt tensioner pully. It was very loud there, much more than anywhere else. Kind of suprising considering I replaced the water pump/tensioner less than 30000 miles ago. I've got the old tensioner that I replaced and I was thinking of just swapping it with the noisy one. I guess I will have to take the timing belt & everything off again, but at least I wouldn't have to do the water pump. At least I think I should be able to do it. What do you think?
Can't do it this weekend, so I'm hoping it will get me to&from work this week without completely seizing up. It looks like they are a sealed unit, so I didn't want to try lubing it with anything.

I threw my timing belt cover away. Got tired of messing with it.....

I don't know how involved a timing belt change is on the 1.9L engines or what the replacement interval is, but you may want to replace the belt at the same time if everything is already taken apart.

If I have to remove the timing belt on my 1.8L engine and it has more than 10,000 miles on it, I'd change it. These are supposed to be changed every 60k miles anyway and I hate changing it that often. I'll replace it early to push off the next belt change as long as possible.

I had a screeching noise from my timing belt area for a while. Then my car took a piss on the freeway. Pissed out all the coolant. Yeah, friggin water pump. Put a new one on and ain't had the sound since.

UNLESS YOU ARE VERY MECHANICALLY INCLINED, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS YOURSELF.

Took me 3 fuggin days and a few 6-packs, but I finally got the pos done, and I AM very mechanically inclined, just lack the resouces.

The biggest hassle about doing the timing belt is having to undo the engine mount... I hate that.
I finally modified the timing cover... at the bottom it has two notches that sort of curl around at the bottom... I just cut one of them off and replaced it by riviting on a small piece of flexible rubber... sort of like a mudflap. Now when I need to get in there I can pull it right off.

Anyway... taking the belt off is not terribly serious because the timing is soooo easy to set on this car. If you look at some pictures and understand how to set the timing, you should have no trouble.

As someone suggested, since you are in there... think about doing some preventative maintenance and maybe replace the water pump or anything else you think is hard to get to.

I don't have a timing belt cover anymore, I got sick of going through the hassle of pulling it off.

It's a lot easier to check my belt on a regular basis, as well.

The biggest hassle about doing the timing belt is having to undo the engine mount... I hate that.
I finally modified the timing cover... at the bottom it has two notches that sort of curl around at the bottom... I just cut one of them off and replaced it by riviting on a small piece of flexible rubber... sort of like a mudflap. Now when I need to get in there I can pull it right off.

Anyway... taking the belt off is not terribly serious because the timing is soooo easy to set on this car. If you look at some pictures and understand how to set the timing, you should have no trouble.

As someone suggested, since you are in there... think about doing some preventative maintenance and maybe replace the water pump or anything else you think is hard to get to.

Well I went ahead and replaced the tensioner pulley with the old one from the water pump I had replaced 30k ago. That did the trick, the bearing in the one I replaced was getting ready to seize. By wedging a wrench head in the slot where the tensioner spring is, I was able to replace the tensioner pulley without having to remove the timing belt or water pump.

If nothing else I've now got the knack for getting the timing belt off and on fairly quick! Thanks everyone for your help.