Really bad belt/pulley squeal...

Well I was using my car as stage lighting tonight for my friend's grad party.

My car was idling with the lights on for about an hour.

I jumped the bands' car. The guy put the wires on backwards once, shooting a tone of sparks from his car and a few from mine.

On the way home everything was ok. Lit the tires up on my way out of the drive. Nothing bad.

Got into town, downshifted to 2nd like usual for a certain hill along the way.

Then, once I put it back in D and hit the gas, I noticed a loud squeal.

I thought it was the wheels so I slowed down. The squeal did stop once I slowed to 20-25 mph.

Then, when I gave it gas, it would squeal again.

If I was REALLY easy on the throttle, it wouldn't squeal. Put if I goosed it a little, it started squealing again.

My friend thinks it's my idler pulley. I have a really bad feeling it may be my new alternator. My thoughts, however, have no justification.

You guys have any suggestions/ideas?

Sounds like its paying you back for giving it $H!t.

If it does it when you give it gas, I'd assume it has to be one of your pullies... which one though, it's hard to say.

Your best bet would be to de-tension and remove the drive belt, and start spinning pulleys. For future reference, here is the correct way to jump start a car

I wasn't doing the jumping. The guy in the band was hooking everything up. It was about 10 at night so it's kinda hard to see.

I never touched a jumper wire last night. I'm quite familiar with jumping vehicles. We have to jump my lawnmower every single time.

Ok well I just looked at my engine.

My idler pulley is GONE!

There is nothing left of it. There's also melted plastic around the engine compartment.

Any explanation for a belt melting an ilder pulley?

Print it off and give it to the guy in the band.

How do you mess that up? Red cable = red terminal, black cable = engine ground

Drummer, ya read my mind! Lone, didn't mean to sound like I was giving you a hard time; in fact, props to ya for trying to help someone out. My guess is that the idler pulley bearing seized up, and suffered a meltdown. Replace it and the belt (since it probably got cooked as well), and have the charging system checked with a meter, just as a precaution.

My friend thought it was the idler pulley bearing. I called him today and said he was right about it being the idler pulley but that the bearing was the only thing left of it.

The bearing still spins but it's noisey as heck. No doubt in my mind that's where the squeal was from. Still checked the oter pulleys, they are doing ok.

I was scanning my Batt with my gauge while I was driving. It's still charging fine so I'm sure my alts good but I'll have it looked at too, just in case.

In return for a ride to the parts store, I have to buy my friend some lunch. Not a bad deal.

So new belt and ilder pulley huh...

Maybe I should just put the belt on and get it to my dads shop. Then I'll just ordre my top-end swap and just start from there...

Sounds like you have it covered; when you replace the belt, make sure the pulley grooves are clean, and free of any belt residue left by the old belt. Good Luck!

Ok. Got the new pulley on and the new belt.

Old belt must have been really worn because I had very little play in the tensioner arm to manage to get the belt around everything.