Evil_Valk
Probationary Member
- 10
- 3
- Sep 28, 2014
-
Beaufort,
South_Carolina
First and foremost this is not a question on how to fix it or a definite answer for those with the same issue. This is merely my experience with my problem and how it was fixed for my car. I drive a 99' Eclipse GST Spyder. I have owned it for about 40-50k miles, and after just a few months on cold start ups I was getting a terrible squeal-it would end after 10-20 seconds. Any load would make it worse i.e., fans/ac on, lights on, radio on, etc. After weeks of putting on new belts for the PS, Alt and WP, the squeal persisted. Tension on belts was to spec and I dressed all of them, still squealed. I searched every where, nothing would fix it.
I checked all pulleys, they were fine. No bearing issues and spun freely without wobble or noise. Checked my crank pulley aka harmonic dampener/balancer. Wasn't loose, didn't wobble, didn't look damaged in any way at all. I could not figure it out. I was upset, angry...every emotion, that was me for weeks.
I ordered a new harmonic dampener hoping it would fix it. I pulled it off, put new one on, belts placed and the tension was to spec. Cranked the car, and nothing. No squeal, rubbing screech, anything. With ac/fans, radio, lights and everything else I could turn on and nothing.
I am telling everyone this for 1 simple reason: My harmonic dampener was my problem, but it seemed to be in good condition with no truly visible issues. Looking at it closer after pulling it off, I saw that I had a chip out of the outer (alternator, water pump, crank) pulley wall. That chip was slowly but surely stripping the outside of the belt and pinching it. My belt was still good, but if you have this problem even if your crank pulley looks fine, you may want to think about taking a closer look at it.
Hope this helps anyone with this DSM squeal issue that doesn't seem to quit!
EDIT: I figured I would upload what my HB/CP looked like after pulling it off. To me it looked as though it was still in decent shape, until I saw the outer ring.
I checked all pulleys, they were fine. No bearing issues and spun freely without wobble or noise. Checked my crank pulley aka harmonic dampener/balancer. Wasn't loose, didn't wobble, didn't look damaged in any way at all. I could not figure it out. I was upset, angry...every emotion, that was me for weeks.
I ordered a new harmonic dampener hoping it would fix it. I pulled it off, put new one on, belts placed and the tension was to spec. Cranked the car, and nothing. No squeal, rubbing screech, anything. With ac/fans, radio, lights and everything else I could turn on and nothing.
I am telling everyone this for 1 simple reason: My harmonic dampener was my problem, but it seemed to be in good condition with no truly visible issues. Looking at it closer after pulling it off, I saw that I had a chip out of the outer (alternator, water pump, crank) pulley wall. That chip was slowly but surely stripping the outside of the belt and pinching it. My belt was still good, but if you have this problem even if your crank pulley looks fine, you may want to think about taking a closer look at it.
Hope this helps anyone with this DSM squeal issue that doesn't seem to quit!
EDIT: I figured I would upload what my HB/CP looked like after pulling it off. To me it looked as though it was still in decent shape, until I saw the outer ring.
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