Noob to the forums here, just bought a 98 montero sportLS with 90,000 miles on it! and probably paid too much.but I'm here to bother someof youabout where and what I can do about this "squeaking" noise from my engine. I've looked into it and it looks like all it is are some of the accessory drive belts just being old and making noise. I just really don't know how many total there are and what kinds I need to get. I already had the dealership replace the alternator belt which was cracked badly. but i think the rest are also most likely bad. Im looking to find a diagram of these belts and was wondering if they need to be retightened after i install new ones because of the lack of an auto tensioner. thanks in advance.

-Jefferson

 

Welcome to the forum.

Based on my experience with my '99 full size Montero, you're likely to have a squeaky bearing on the idler pulley at the top left (drivers side) of the engine. I'm traveling this week and can't remember which belt this is part of - perhaps the A/C? Anyway, I had to replace mine twice in 175K and the squeak it makes is definitely annoying. It's not expensive and is pretty easy to replace. You loosen the bolt in the center of the pulley and then you can loosen the tension adjuster bolt that sticks out toward the battery. You don't need to remove the belt but you have to work around the top radiator hose. It may be worth it to loose some coolant and pull the top hose off the radiator and twist it out of the way.

But first, here's an unusual but cheap way to check it out before replacing. The idea is to spray white lithium spray grease into the center of the pulley while it's running without getting the grease on the belt. The problem is that the radiator and fanare in the way. So I took the normal red plastic spray tube from the can of grease and held it over a match to carefully make a 90 degree about 3/8" from one end. Then I used a small diameter vacuum hose to make a flexible2 foot extension from the can to the red hose. Once you have this set up you can hold the bent hose down in front of the pulley and spray grease into the center. It should immediately go quiet and stay that way for weeks.

Sounds weird but works well. e-mail me at ems1255@comcast.net if you have questions.

Ron

 

Thanks so much for that, I was ready to put new belts on (which frankly just looked like hours of work). It is soo nice for the squeaks to be gone, especially because of the warmer weather rolling around and the windows down, I don'thave to listen to that damn squeak any more. I used my stethoscope to find the pulley that was squeaking and it seemed 2 of them, the alternator and the idler pulley were squeaking, so I sprayed both and they are noise-less now and will probably need replacing soon. But, all problems aside, thanks once again for that, saved me tons of money for the moment.

-Jefferson

 

Thanks forreporting back- glad it worked for you too. Hopefully you'll be able to go quite a while with repeated applicationsbefore replacing.
Ron