Loud Squeal for Few Seconds

[Art Gladfelter]

Greetings,

Have 90 MGM that has very loud idle high pitch SQUEAL for 10 to 15 seconds from cold starting that suddenly stops. Noise is coming from fan belt area. A new main fan belt put on by Jiffy Lube about 3,000 miles ago is good.... but was not really needed. I did increase belt tension slightly BUT loud squeal at cold start-up is still ear piercing. Noise not present with hot engine.

Sprayed main belt with belt dressing & sqealing noise changes.
Hard to believe a fan belt will make this much noise???
Drove 260 miles yesterday w/o any problem.
Water pump is NOT leaking coolant.

Any other suggestions??

Thanks folks!!!!!

Art G.

[HEMIDAZE]

Art,
With the engine cold take off the belt and inspect for problems. Check all the pulleys by hand including the idler pulleys. They shoud not have any play or roughness to speak of. You didn't say how many miles you had on it. My 98 meeded both idler pulleys at about 70000 miles. Borderline bearings will make noise when cold. The idler pulleys were about $15 each and were pretty easy to replace. I was going to Florida so I also replaced the water pump at 70000 miles because I was worried about the dredded cracked manifold syndrome. It cracked at 100000 miles.

PS how do you increase the belt tension? I thought it had a serpentine belt.

PSS I did a little checking and it appears that the 90s came with a serpentine OR a V belt.

[Art Gladfelter]

Greetings Hemidaze,

Thanks for your good ideas to troubleshoot noise.

I'll see what happens with the belt removed.

Bought car with 107K & now has 132K miles. I'm not sure if water pump was ever changed.

All past experiences with water pumps always had a slow leak at first....but maybe that is not always the case?????

Thanks again.

Art G.

[HEMIDAZE]

I don't know about the 90s, but the water pump on my 98 4.6 was the easiest water pump I ever replaced in my life. I did a water pump on a Honda once that the bearings were so sloppy it threw the belt, but it wasn't leaking a drop.

[Art Gladfelter]

Greetings Hemidaze,

Loud Squeal was finally traced to a worn/glazed Alternator/Power Steering belt. It may have been the original Ford Belt put on years ago. Put on a new Dayco 5060500 and squeal disappeared.

It was hard for me to believe a worn belt could make this much noise.
.... sounded like a metal-to-metal noise.

Thanks again for all your help.

Art G.

[HEMIDAZE]

I think general motors switched to serpentine belts in the early 80s. I guess ford took a while to catch up. Glad to here it's fixed.