Quote:
Originally Posted by gigamanx
What a pain that looks like. Glad you found your problem. Reminds me of when I spent two weeks chasing every wire of my truck only to find out the brand new turn signal housing I bought had a short in it. Ugh, makes me wish I checked that first  |
It really wasn't as bad as it seemed. If I had realized from the beginning that my issue was the depth of the pulley on the P/S pump shaft, the problem would have been resolved in under a day.
Truthfully, I didn't expect the Comet cleanser to be a lasting fix, since baby powder was a temporary fix previously. Clearly, I was not anything on the belt or pulleys that was causing the chirp, and looking back, I should have realized it was something mechanical.
The tensioner was a used part that came with the $400 complete engine that is in Ethyl. It was frozen in place and probably hadn't moved in years. I had hoped by feeding ATF into the housing and working the spring back and forth, it would free up and become serviceable again. It did to some extent, but tension wasn't the best and at full travel, it would lock in place, so it was due to be replaced, even if it wasn't the cause of the chirp.
Likewise, the idler pulley was serviceable, but it too came with the 90k mile $400 complete engine that replaced the corroded block that came in the donor truck. The sealed bearing still had lube and for the most part, it turned smoothly, but there were occasional spots that were inconsistent, not really rough, but not smooth and uniform. The bearing would fail sooner rather than later, so replacing it was inevitable even if it wasn't the cause of the chirp, too.
I took Ethyl out for a drive yesterday and can say with 100% confidence that the problem is resolved with the spare pump assembly. The pump and the A/C compressor both came with the junk motor that was in the donor Dodge, so neither of those parts cost me anything, other than time for the swap.
It's a little win, but it's also one less thing to check off.
-Joe