Yep, it's another squealing belt thread. My blazer is a 2001 model. I've followed some advice I found in other postings and narrowed it down to the bottom pulley. That leaves me with the question: what exactly is the cause and how do I find out? I suppose it could be the bearing or the harmonic balancer. Any thoughts on how I can find out without spending a small fortune or wasting too much time?

 

u could have a lil coolant leak too getting onto ur belt. coolant is a big cause of squealing belts. but u could also try lubing ur pulleys with wd40 or putting wd40 on ur belt then turning ur rig on, should go away. and if it comes back then its prob coolant or just a lil loose.

 

How many miles are on your truck? If you have a ton it is possible it is the HB, but I would think pretty unlikely. I had this belt noise on two trucks, one was the power steering pulley was just a little off, rented a puller to fix alignment. The other I could never track down, everything was fine. Used a little di-electrical grease, haven't heard it in 3300 miles.

If that does not work, just crank up your radio...LOL..JK

 

LOL, I actually have been using the radio to cover it. It's a little embarrassing driving around like that, though. It's got around 160K on the odometer. I didn't think the harmonic balancer would just go bad, but there isn't much else on that pulley to look for.

I can't see or smell anything like coolant in the engine compartment. The only time the squeal went away was when I put a little dielectric grease on the inner front rim of the crankshaft pulley, but it came back pretty quickly. I suppose I could put on a little more that I did before. Originally it was just a small dab to find if that was the origin of the noise. I haven't done anything that would have moved any of the the grooved pulleys. That's what made me think it might be something causing a slight wobble on the crankshaft pulley, although it doesn't look to be noticeably wobbling (which would probably be really bad).

Maybe I'll just buy a gatorback belt before I mess with it much more. The dayco seemed good for a while, but maybe that is the only problem.