Terrible squeaky belt all of a sudden

Make sure the bolt holding the crank pulley on is snug. All of the Asian crank pulley bolts I've worked with were 27MM. Not sure about 2nd gen Tacoma. I don't recall seeing your engine size - 4 cyl / 6 cyl.

If bolt is snug, the harmonic balancer portion of your crank pulley may be going bad and if it is, this thing can make all sorts of noise as it's failing.

 

Had this happen on my brother's 4cyl. Check the harmonic balancer... his had separated from the center weight part... loud squeal over 2000 rpm and looked fine when you just looked at everything. Ended up taking out a lot of stuff under the hood when it finally gave out.

 

bolt is pretty snug. I recently had the crank seal replaced at the dealer. I'm going to clean everything up and replace the belt again and see what happens

 

well.. I guess it worked. Cleaned everything off REALLY REALLY good with brake cleaner and degreaser. Took off the belt, even cleaned it. But it still squealed when reinstalled. Hose it all down real good with degreaser and water and let it run and squeal for a while. Pulled the belt and wiped everything again, installed a brand new belt.... So far its quiet. Moral of the story.. Don't use belt conditioner. At least not CRC brand... the Only thing it did was make things much much worse. Even yesterday, I knew I was going to clean it all, so after squeelin all day to town and back.. I hit it just barely with the crc, and it immediately got TERRIBLE.. the exact same thing that happened originally.. I really didn't have a squeal originally, just thought I heard a chirp.. so I thought I would spray a little, and it immediately got terrible, and ive been chasing it ever sense.. GRRRRRR

 

Ouch, too bad you had to learn the hard way that belt conditioner or dressing is as much of a curse as it is. For the life of me, I can't figure out why they sell the stuff, other than that folks keep buying it because it's on the market - it just makes things worse, as you found out.

 

ended up buying 2 belts, and 2 idler pulleys,, that I never needed.. Fortunately I got the pulleys refunded. But ruined a brand new belt.

 

Belt dressing is bad juju, I learned the hard way too.

 

So did I, no more of that crap.

 

started chirping again today intermittently.... so frustrating. Kinda comes and goes though.. maybe its just the new belt wearing in.. Or maybe being a thinner harder aftermarket belt is an issue.. so so frustrating

 

I changed the tensioner pulley and it seems to have cleared up the squeak then replaced with new oe belt

 

Gates or OEM belts only.

Belts shouldn't chirp "wearing in". You have other issues. Are you sure all your idlers and pulleys are OK?

 

the deal is.. there was no real problem to begin with I don't think. I thought I heard the belt chirp a little... so I sprayed it.. And ive been fighting it ever since. Its a Dayco belt. I cant tell if anything is wrong with anything. everything turns freely, nothing is loose. and it was always the ribbed side that caused a squeak, not the flat side that goes over the idlers

 

Changing a tensioner pulley is cheaper than replacing the whole tensioner when it finally decides to explode and heat fuse itself together (forcing you to buy the whole thing) and making a lot more work for yourself. That's where I'd start. Good luck!

 

More time and energy was wasted by the OP on this thread compared to just changing the belt and checking the pulleys. What does a belt cost-$ 25/30? If you have a squeeky belt, it is either a. the belt, b. a pulley/pullies
What else is there to say about it

 

cuz throwing money at it for no reason is more expensive than tryin to seek a little advice. Ive already basically spent near 200 dollars on this if you count the pulleys ive returned

 

Good suggestion! I ran it without the belt for a few minutes and seemed fine, but under load would be a different story! Thanks!

 

OEM, more like 60-75

 

I'm gonna try an OEM belt now. New one chirps intermittently. Its quiet on start up. After a couple minutes It will chirp chirp chirp,, pause, chirp chirp chirp pause.. . It will chirp for a couple miles, then stops. And doesn't do it till I let it cool down. It doesn't make sense.

 

OEM Bando brand belt from Napa was 20 something. If you wait til morning I will get you the number, if you want.

Edit. Did you clean the pulleys and then re-install the new belt that had run with the dressing on it?

 

I cleaned the pulleys, Even with a toothbrush. Cleaned the belt. Then put the belt back on to move out to the water hose .. Cleaned it all some more with more degreaser, let it sit, sprayed it off, let it sit sprayed it off. sprayed it while it was running. Pulled back into shop, Pulled the belt off,, wiped pulleys some more.. put on a brand new DAYCO belt from advance. Ran quiet for 15 minutes. I thought it was all great. Ran quiet the next morning. Headed to town, got 3 miles down the road and it started chirping again. Chirped for several miles, then quited down again. Now its quiet for a couple minutes right after cold start.. then chirps for a while, then quiets down again. Everything seems fine.. So I don't know what to do other than put on an OEM belt and see what happens. I already ordered one online for 35 bucks. The other belt was shot after a couple days. The popping I was hearing was actually it trying to jump track on a wore spot. When I got the squealin to stop originally, I think it had actually jumped groove, and somehow that made the noise stop, but wore the belt wrong. So I got another one same brand.. and still got noise, though not the constant squealin as before.. just a chirp