Can't get belt squeak to go away

[d7es3l]

97 f250 won't stop squeaking & has only gotten worse. All the pulleys seem ok. The vacuum pump feels really seized up but still spins(with a lot of force). Whenever I spray water on to the belt between the fan hub & power steering pulley on the splined side, the squeak will go away. Is it possible the seized vacuum pump is causing extra stress somewhere else around the pulleys? The crankshaft pulley/harmonic balancer does look like it has a slight wobble to it as well... Any info is appreciated so money & time aren't wasted on new parts that aren't needed. Truck has 200,000 on it. Thanks. Also, just replaced tensioner pulley to no avail.

 

[webb06]

change the belt, if water stops the squeaking it's the belt...if not then its a bearing or one of the accessories. in your case...the belt

 

[spongebob915]

Belt tensionor

 

[d7es3l]

change the belt, if water stops the squeaking it's the belt...if not then its a bearing or one of the accessories. in your case...the belt

I didn't think of this, he bought a new belt not long ago but I remember it being a shoddy, cheap $20 belt... Will slap my good belt on their tomorrow to see if it fixes it.

 

[backwoodsboy]

Goodyear Gatorback.
Last belt you will ever buy.

 

[purpleheart350]

If you change to new belts they are tad bit longer now and will require you to get the longer belt tensioner. It is less than $100 but it stopped the squeaking. I did this after I replaced every pulley in the truck and the squeaking didn't stop. That's how I found out that the newer belts are just a tad bit longer.

 

[d7es3l]

Yup. It was the belt, thanks for the suggestion everyone

 

[Bugman]

If you change to new belts they are tad bit longer now and will require you to get the longer belt tensioner. It is less than $100 but it stopped the squeaking. I did this after I replaced every pulley in the truck and the squeaking didn't stop. That's how I found out that the newer belts are just a tad bit longer.

If you are getting a belt that requires you to also replace the tensioner you are buying the wrong belt. It is usually the other way around. There was a TSB out for the dealer to replace our single pulley tensioner with the one found on the SD pickups which is a dual pulley one. That one required a new longer belt.

 

[purpleheart350]

Well the autozone (only shop around where I was) had the belt and the next smallest one was to small. It was for my 95' and the part number I looked up was right. But it was just a tad big. I talked to the "diesel" guy there and he was the one that told me about them changing the pulleys to a longer one (still a single pulley). I liked the longer one better anyways.