Loud squealing from engine after changing all the belts and pulleys

[mickburkesnr]

I managed to finish the job of changing the timing belt on my 1998 1.3 Corolla today. I replaced the timing belt, the tensioner and pulley (as I bought it as a kit). I then changed the two drive belts, put everything back together. I turned the engine on for the first time in about a month and it started fine - then the squealing started. The squeal is so bad it's deafening, and continues even when I rev the engine. It actually seems to speed up with the rev, and when I have the bonnet up and it idles you can't stand near it for more than a minute at least, but with this squeal I did hear a rythmic knock. I would assume this is a bit of a tappet noise? As I said it's been a month since it was turned over and the rocker cover had been removed. I did put it back without bolting it back down, but in that time I damaged my knee so I couldn't work on it.

So at the moment I have one car still up on axles, a throbbing knee, a girlfriend moaning at me that I have no clue what I'm doing - however this is a process of learning, I never once said I knew it all - and a desire to not be beat by this car and get it back on the road. I'd appreciate the help!

[TomdeGuerre]

Sounds like you've got at least one belt twisted or running out of alignment Mike. Did you fit a replacement alternator and if so is it the right one? Did you fit it the right side of the spacer? Maybe you've severely over-tensioned one of the belts, see if you can slacken off tensioner(s) and re-check belt runs. Oh and hit the GF a slap and tell her to !Removed! - a man's got enough to do without them chiming in. 

[crofter]

Hi Mike, If I can add to the good advice given,belt squeal or slippage can be checked by, with the engine running and standing out of the line of fire (spray) pour some water on the belts. If it goes quite then check that none of the belts are running in the bottom of a pulley. modern pulley are made lighter so can spread 

[mickburkesnr]

The belt I have that drives the power steering doesn't fit the full width of the pulley actually. There's a gap on the one side (nearest the power steering pulley). This might be the problem.

I'll check the tensions tomorrow on the belt, and try out the water test. I'm guessing I don't soak this, I just put enough on to generate a spray or quieten it down?

And RE the GF, she's been told. Doesn't stop her continually nagging about it :P

[mickburkesnr]

Right! I attacked it this evening and I think the belt that drives the power steering pump wasn't tight enough, and it was also very slightly not straight. The belt is smaller than what the pulleys can take, and the edge of the belt around the crank was as far to the right as it could go and it was as far to the left as it could go on the power steering pump pulley. So I moved it to the right, and the squeak is gone!

However, I've noticed a new sound now. The engine sounds a little rough, however I don't know if this is normal or not as I only drove the car for a week a month ago so I've forgotten how it actually sounds. I've recorded it when it was near to temperature, but I'm struggling to get it off the phone at the moment. It was a rhythmic knocking sound, like i was hitting it with a hammer. It did get quieter the warmer it got, so I'm wondering if it's just the oil making its way back round the engine.

I did take it for a quick spin, and while under heavy accelerating I had the window down to listen to any noises, I heard a squeal at high revs. Not sure what revs at the moment as the car doesn't have a rev counter and my OBD2 connector is in another car at the moment. I wonder if this is just the belts settling in and will need re-tightening?

Edit: Here's the video of the car running. 

 

[oldcodger]

That sounds rough to me, almost like a blow hole in the exhaust .. ?

Think I would take one belt at a time off and see if the noise goes away; think it should runs disconnected for the few seconds you need to run it to prove the point.

The other way you see some folk doing is using one of the car stethoscopes, though a bit dangererous around that belt area

[TomdeGuerre]

What’s your problem Mick? Wish my engine sounded as sweet as that lol. 

Sounds like you’ve got a bit of a clatter at idle, sounds a bit cammy (generic term for any noise coming off the valve gear especially on aluminium engines) but it’s OK when it revs up. Just a thought, is the power steering fluid level OK? Some noise could be coming off the pump. It’s hard to tell for sure from the video but that power steering belt looks to be way too low down in the pulley. If it’s a “toothed” V belt and it’s the wrong width it could be noisy ‘cos the “teeth” are bottoming out on the base of the pulley. How does it compare in width to what came off? 

Otherwise I’d agree with OC, take the alternator belt off, alternator bearings might be shot. Did it spin OK nice and quiet when you had it off? Shouldn’t have said that, the auto sparks used to say if you spin an alternator without power applied you can blow the diodes. Urban legend? Never known it to happen myself.
 

[mickburkesnr]

There is a hole in the exhaust, it's been an advisory as a "small hole" for the last few years from the previous owner but she never bothered to get it done as she only drove the car to the tip. I'm planning on welding it, or at least attempting to cover the hole, before it goes in for it's MOT.

I haven't checked the power steering fluid, so I'll do that tonight when I get home. I'm also going to check the water levels as, in my head, if the pump is trying to pump water but there's no water there or not enough it might be that that's causing it?

In regards to the belt, the old one is sitting on a dump somewhere as it was binned when it was taken off. I think the belt I put on should be a little wider as the pulley on the crank and the pump are big enough for it.

I think you'll notice too that there is a squeal at the high revs in that video at the engine. Could be the exhaust? But generally if it weren't for that clatter the engine sounds lovely.

Still proud that I pulled off a 3/4 spanner job (according to the Haynes manual). Might not be so proud if it blows up at the side of the road though haha

[mickburkesnr]

OK so I checked the power steering fluid, it's full. I checked the engine oil, it's full. I open the radiator cap - it's not full. I had drained the radiator with the intention to replace the water pump before I hurt my knee. I forgot to finish that particular job. So I topped it up to the brim and the clattering/knocking/chattering reduced significantly. It sounds fine now, however I'm going to turn it on tomorrow to see if the fluid made the difference or the fact the engine warmed up fixed the issue.

[oldcodger]

Ouch , that could be expensive ? how long have you run the engine for sounding like that ?

How much water did you have to put in ?

From what I read out them, seems the water pump can be quickly destroyed by lack of water.

Hope you did not run the engine for a long time so the block did not overheat due to lack of water ?!

 

I

[mickburkesnr]

I did run it last night. I didn't pay much attention to the dashboard, but the temperature needle did hit H but there was no temperature light. Soon as I saw it I turned it off, it did sound like a kettle but I thought I had disconnected a wire during the work which was related to the fan not coming on but the wire I thought it was was plugged in. So it hasn't been run for any great length of time with the lack of water, say 5 to 10 minutes, and I've a water pump in the garage for it anyway.

I probably have knackered the water pump. Today I filled it up with the 50/50 mix, it's a 5L bottle of the red stuff. I put in about half of the bottle, let it run for 20 minutes while I waited for the mix to go down. Kept a keen eye on the temperature needle and on the fan. The needle didn't go above the half way point and the fan came on. So I don't think I've done too much damage, but I'm well prepared for the news that I've knackered the water pump.

[Mike169]

Hi, if there was no water in the area around the temp. sensor it has nothing to register so it may well still of get very hot but it won't show on the gauge as it can't pick up the heat of the engine.

Good luck, Mike.

[mickburkesnr]

4 minutes ago, Mike169 said:

Hi, if there was no water in the area around the temp. sensor it has nothing to register so it may well still of get very hot but it won't show on the gauge as it can't pick up the heat of the engine.

Good luck, Mike.

.... I thought the light was connected to the gauge, so once the gauge hit the red then it'd pop on? It sounded hot, like a kettle, there was no steam. I lifted the bonnet up and let it cool down. I'm fairly sure there was some water in the engine, as the car should've taken in more coolant than it did. As when I drained it the engine was stone cold and I just let it bleed out the nipple at the bottom of the radiator. Not a lot came out, about the same as what I put in to be honest.

But yeah, I'm going to keep this one quiet from the girlfriend I think and hope the car doesn't show me up by blowing up. 

[mickburkesnr]

Right, tonight I took it out for a drive (with the coolant topped up this time). I was in there for about 20/30 minutes, driving to the train station, waiting, and driving back. Most I ever did was 40mph and I kept a keen eye on the temperature needle. It got to half way once while I was in the car park waiting, the rest of the time the needle dipped below the half way point. Let's say it was around 2/5's?

Quietly confident, the idle speed is quite high at the moment but dips when I release the clutch, but it didn't boil over like I thought it would.

[garethpaul]

Once the temp needle reaches halfway, it should really stay there all the time the engine is running. If it is dipping below half, then there is a chance your thermostat is sticking partially open.

A quick way to test is to start the engine from cold and keep a feel of the top of the radiator.  What you are looking for is for it to remain cold, then get hot very quickly at some point when your engine gets up to temperature (needle approaching half way). If you find that the radiator slowly warms up right from the get go, then your thermostat is likely stuck open.

This may be contributing to your high idle. When started from cold, the engine will idle higher (around 1200rpm which is normal), until the various sensors come into "warmed up" parameters, at which point the idle revs should drop to around 750rpm.

If a stuck thermostat is not allowing your engine to get up to the proper temp, then the coolant temp sensor never hits it target and consequently the computer keeps the revs high.

[Mike169]

Hi, I still think you have a large air lock in your cooling system and driving the car will do you no favours. A way of getting air locks out is to look for bleed nipples in the cooling system, another way is to look for high up fittings in the cooling system and undo them and fill it with water until the water comes out of the high up sensor or whatever you have undone or another way is to undo the top hose, hold it high in the air, remove the water filler cap and back fill the top hose and with the hose held high get a watering can and keep pouring it in until it flows from the filler cap, you can also undo fitting as I mentioned earlier and filling it in the same way. Good luck.

[mickburkesnr]

I think you might be right in regards to the thermostat. I took it for it's MOT yesterday and had to wait for an hour to get it seen. Once in there the engine revs were high, but then after a time everything calmed down once it had warmed up and the fan had kicked in. It failed the emissions when it was cold, but once it had warmed up it was fine.

And thanks Mike169 I'll try that today.

[mickburkesnr]

Took me a bit longer to get the above done.

Yes there was an air lock, I bled the system for an hour and I thought it would solve my issue with the high idle speed when starting from cold. It didn't, so I'm going to replace the thermostat at the weekend and replace the coolant again and see if this makes a difference.

For the record, I have done a number of miles on the car since I did this (I know I shouldn't, but couldn't be helped with work etc). The car seems to be running fine. It eventually gets up to temperature, I've checked the oil filler cap for any sign of water along with the dipstick. Both are fine, no sign of water contamination. Might be early days but I'm feeling a bit more confident that I dodged any major damage.

Time will tell though, obviously.

[garethpaul]

Higher idle speed at cold is normal; the ecu keeps it at around 1200rpm until the engine is warmed up, so that alone is not necessarily a sign of a bad thermostat.

Taking a long time to get to temperature, temperature needle dropping when travelling at speed, and radiator warming up right from a cold start up are all pointers to a stuck open thermostat.

However the thermostat is a relatively cheap bit of maintenance, so would be worth changing anyway. I would stay away from the Circoli ones from Eurocarparts - quite a few negative reviews of them around the net. Ideally, go for a genuine Toyota one or at the very least BluePrint. Perhaps others could advise some respectable makes?

[mickburkesnr]

19 minutes ago, garethpaul said:

I would stay away from the Circoli ones from Eurocarparts

Guess which one I ordered? In fairness it cost me all of £5 so I'm not fussed about not using it.

This morning it took about 20 minutes for the needle to get anywhere near half way. The journey for those 20 minutes is 50/60mph roads until I get in to Birmingham, then it's 30mph at which point the engine is warmed up. It'll be the same tonight when I go home, however it'll take 20 minutes at 30mph to warm up.