squeaky belt

[continental]

My 1990 continental has a squeaking problem. It's not a drawn out squeal like I've heard others describe, which is apparently attributed to the belt slipping. Mine starts out as a repetitive chirping at low rpms and increases as the engine rpms increase. I'm thinking I would like to take off my belt, and turn each of the pullies by hand to see if the bearings are okay. Wanted to know if I need a belt tension gauge when I'm reinstalling the belt or if the belt tensioner assembly has a built in indicator or something. I haven't gotten a chance to look at it closely yet, and was wondering if anyone had some advice. Thanks

[MichiganTeddyBear]

no gauge needed, the tensioner takes care of maintaining proper tension.

the tensioner also has marks on top (if I recall correctly), one on the 'moveable part', two on the stationary.. the movable part (single mark) should be between the 2 stationary ones.

you should be able to spin all pulleys and bearing easily with the exception of the P/S pump.. it will fight back some, and you won't be able to 'spin' it, but you can turn it by hand. Also, the water pump may do the same. Of course, your not gonna turn the crank pulley.

one thing you might look at, is to make sure all pulleys are running straight and true.. sounds like maybe one is rubbing on a bracket or something.

[Steve Moran]

I will say from my past it that you have sand or grio in the groves of the belt. The belt will have shiny specks in the groves, these specks are grains of sand that have been slipping over a pulley system for a while until they smothed off.
You can peck them out but you will notice some deep pockets where the debris was, I for one don't feel comfortable with the little pockets of missing rubber so I will always replace mine when they chirp.
I also have an advantage of being able to beadblast my pulleys so they are not so slick anymore. If you have this ability I reccomend it.

[continental]

I plan to check the alignment of the pullies and examine and possibly replace the belt. Unfortunately, I do not have access to beadblasting. Would it be ok to do a real light sanding by hand with a fine grit paper? Any other possibilities? Thanks

[Steve Moran]

Anything to remove the hard glaze.
It will become shiny again but it should not squeel so bad if at all.