Squealing on acceleration

[thatchrisguy]

My Deli has recently started to squeal when I accelerate hard. If I slowly get up to speed it doesn't happen. Is it most likely one of the belts?

Chris

[Luna-Sea]

I would say yes belts, don't know if the fan would scream if its not grabbing.
If you rev it up with the engine compartment hatch open,
You should be able to narrow it down.

With the engine off , inspection of your belts
if one is not obviously loose it will probably be
Shiny and smooth from slipping. (glazing)

Good Luck

[TardisDeli]

As Luna Sea says. Take the keys out of the ignition when working in this area just in case.

There are normally 4 belts (depending on your model, 4 for the usual auto trans with AC) all in one area under the large black plastic curved fan shroud, in order to see the belts, remove the fan shroud. be super careful not to break shroud or lose the clips when removing the fan shroud, now you can sit in driver seat and look down to belts. 4 belts: timing, ac, ....hmmm blanked mind here for third belt... , and small balancer belt (this is the critical one, it comes off the bottom of your engine and balances the engine so that the innards dont have a fist fight).

Reach down and feel each one, shuld be nicely springy not crispy and glazed and shiny from being worn away. feel underside of each one, the teeth underneath should be firmly and evenly ridgid. The sides especially should not have bits of threads hanging off. Try to turn the belt on its side, it should resist, if you can turn the side 90 degrees that is too loose.

Now, yes, you will be tempted to just replace the bad belt. But you realy should do a full maintenance at this point. The postings here tell you the horrors of a belt that failed on the highway and took out the other belts and now the engine overheats and poof you have to buy a new engine for $4000 dollars.

Full maintenance, means open heart surgery. Open up the engine area completety, Replace the 4 belts, water pump, the upper and lower rad hoses, etc. At this time, since the engine area is all opened up, it is cheap to replace the engine gasket seal, and any other engine stuff (clean yr injector if they havent been done for a few years) etc etc. Verify the timing etc.

Do be careful when replacing belts, if the timing or tension is off by the tiniest bit, then the engine seems to run OK, but later on it suddenly has a catastophic failure (K&B and 2 dogs story posted from their trip to Arizona). This is the time to go to one of the trusted expert delica mechanics.

christine.

[thatchrisguy]

Ouch..that sounds expensive, but not as expensive as a new engine.. Sorry for the late reply; I was away to Jolly ol England. I'm going to save your message and take it with me to CVI and have them fix me up.

thank you, I'll let you know what happens

Chris