100 series turbo Diesel Squeeky Fan belts

[Ted]

I have a 2005 100series LC Sahara Turbo Diesel. I recently purchased a set of fanbelts from Toyotain Ingham and replaced them myself. However ,I now have a very annoying squeel for the first 3 or 4 minutes of driving when the car is cold. I have not been able to determine whether it is the alternator/fan belt or the power steering one which is the culprit and I am scared to tighten them up too much. Can anyone help me with a solution?

[justdriveit]

I have a 2005 100series LC Sahara Turbo Diesel. I recently purchased a set of fanbelts from Toyotain Ingham and replaced them myself. However ,I now have a very annoying squeel for the first 3 or 4 minutes of driving when the car is cold. I have not been able to determine whether it is the alternator/fan belt or the power steering one which is the culprit and I am scared to tighten them up too much. Can anyone help me with a solution?

Fairly common problem. All our 100's have done/do this from time to time. Can just about guarantee that it is the Alternator belts. Rather than the Air Con belt.

Solutions: (Apart from; next time buy Gates belts, they give better service & less problems -like this- than the tojo ones)

1:- You may find that you old belts were hardened and glazed on the contact surfaces and have polished/glazed the surfaces of the pulley/s. Also there may be a buildup of old rubber & grott down in the V which is tending to stop the new belts settling well in the groove. Find yourself a can of "Belt Dressing" or similar name. You may not find it in local auto shop, if not try your local tractor/irrigation pump/farm equipment outlet. Used to be very common when a lot of farms used big wide belts to drive pumps, saws etc from a pulley on the PTO of a tractor. ( OH&S have just taken all thrill out life -no more standing in freezing mud 1inch deeper than your gum boots at 2 o'clock in the morning slapping dressing about with one hand, hanging onto your flapping coat with the other trying not to get blown into the belt & pulley and turned into "belt dressing" yourself!) YOU won't need the 1 gallon tin & old tar brush - a 300gram spray can will do!! My current cans came from Repco.

The directions will say something like "spray on contact surfaces while belt is moving" . Not a lot of room down the front of that engine...mmm....still thrills to be had!! Such directions are NOT COMMANDMENTS FROM GOD.

So BE CAREFUL. THINK about EXACTLY what & how BEFORE you DO.

A quick spray with the engine off & then immediately starting & running a minute or 2 & repeating can be effective - and keep knuckles & fingers intact.

2:- The belt deflection spec for the Alt belts is only 8-11 mm - thats less than 1/2 an inch - and that's with a 10 kilogram weight pushing it side ways in the centre of its longest span (which is not very long). If you think about that carefully - try pushing down on the kitchen or bathroom scales with your thumb to get the scale to 10 KGs to get the feel of how much that is.

I find that you can wind on the tension quite a bit without it seeming to change the deflection that much and then suddenly just "one turn of the screw and confess all". I find that somewhere near a successful setting. Because even the longest leg of this belt is fairly short it may SEEM that it is under more tension than it is.

The Air con belt is much less finicky.

Generally to check which belt: turn on the High beam headlights and the Heater blower full (NOT COLD/air con). If the squealing flares up its the Alt belt. Turn headlights OFF and aircon On with blower on low. If pushing the aircon button on and off causes squealing to rise and fall - its the A/C belt.

3:- The factory Toyota twin battery setup is crap!!!

The way it is setup, if there is just about any fault in one battery it will fairly quickly (and often "quietly") impact on the other battery. Often one faulty battery taking a perfectly good battery to the grave with it, before the problem becomes apparent.

There is also the potential with the setup for some very subtle & technical idiosyncrasy in its behavior when charging. It is way too technical to go into here.

It seems to depend somewhat on the type & pattern of use the vehicle gets as to whether it becomes an issue. We have one GXL, which has a Cruisy life. Sees bumper to bumper traffic about twice a year, does about 50 - 150 kms a day, 7 days a week, in 70/80/100 zones & about 5-15 kms on lightly gravel road at about 20 kmph. Never gets closer than a 1000 revs to redline (except when I drive it), etc. It routinely completely screws a pair of batteries in well less than 3 years and one set in less than a year. A virtually identical vehicle - different driver different usage pattern - gets treated like a whore without draws, sees grid lock traffic one day, freeway express run all day the next and fire roads, logging tracks and paddocks at the canter along the way, and 2 days a week does 3km. The factory/dealer bats did 21/2 years, the next pair 41/2 and only changed them because I didn't want to send it into a real bad summer (just gone) with any question marks.

Consider modifying/upgrading your system to implement starting fallback & sequential charging.

[Ted]

I have a 2005 100series LC Sahara Turbo Diesel. I recently purchased a set of fanbelts from Toyotain Ingham and replaced them myself. However ,I now have a very annoying squeel for the first 3 or 4 minutes of driving when the car is cold. I have not been able to determine whether it is the alternator/fan belt or the power steering one which is the culprit and I am scared to tighten them up too much. Can anyone help me with a solution?

Fairly common problem. All our 100's have done/do this from time to time. Can just about guarantee that it is the Alternator belts. Rather than the Air Con belt.

Solutions: (Apart from; next time buy Gates belts, they give better service & less problems -like this- than the tojo ones)

1:- You may find that you old belts were hardened and glazed on the contact surfaces and have polished/glazed the surfaces of the pulley/s. Also there may be a buildup of old rubber & grott down in the V which is tending to stop the new belts settling well in the groove. Find yourself a can of "Belt Dressing" or similar name. You may not find it in local auto shop, if not try your local tractor/irrigation pump/farm equipment outlet. Used to be very common when a lot of farms used big wide belts to drive pumps, saws etc from a pulley on the PTO of a tractor. ( OH&S have just taken all thrill out life -no more standing in freezing mud 1inch deeper than your gum boots at 2 o'clock in the morning slapping dressing about with one hand, hanging onto your flapping coat with the other trying not to get blown into the belt & pulley and turned into "belt dressing" yourself!) YOU won't need the 1 gallon tin & old tar brush - a 300gram spray can will do!! My current cans came from Repco.

The directions will say something like "spray on contact surfaces while belt is moving" . Not a lot of room down the front of that engine...mmm....still thrills to be had!! Such directions are NOT COMMANDMENTS FROM GOD.

So BE CAREFUL. THINK about EXACTLY what & how BEFORE you DO.

A quick spray with the engine off & then immediately starting & running a minute or 2 & repeating can be effective - and keep knuckles & fingers intact.

2:- The belt deflection spec for the Alt belts is only 8-11 mm - thats less than 1/2 an inch - and that's with a 10 kilogram weight pushing it side ways in the centre of its longest span (which is not very long). If you think about that carefully - try pushing down on the kitchen or bathroom scales with your thumb to get the scale to 10 KGs to get the feel of how much that is.

I find that you can wind on the tension quite a bit without it seeming to change the deflection that much and then suddenly just "one turn of the screw and confess all". I find that somewhere near a successful setting. Because even the longest leg of this belt is fairly short it may SEEM that it is under more tension than it is.

The Air con belt is much less finicky.

Generally to check which belt: turn on the High beam headlights and the Heater blower full (NOT COLD/air con). If the squealing flares up its the Alt belt. Turn headlights OFF and aircon On with blower on low. If pushing the aircon button on and off causes squealing to rise and fall - its the A/C belt.

3:- The factory Toyota twin battery setup is crap!!!

The way it is setup, if there is just about any fault in one battery it will fairly quickly (and often "quietly") impact on the other battery. Often one faulty battery taking a perfectly good battery to the grave with it, before the problem becomes apparent.

There is also the potential with the setup for some very subtle & technical idiosyncrasy in its behavior when charging. It is way too technical to go into here.

It seems to depend somewhat on the type & pattern of use the vehicle gets as to whether it becomes an issue. We have one GXL, which has a Cruisy life. Sees bumper to bumper traffic about twice a year, does about 50 - 150 kms a day, 7 days a week, in 70/80/100 zones & about 5-15 kms on lightly gravel road at about 20 kmph. Never gets closer than a 1000 revs to redline (except when I drive it), etc. It routinely completely screws a pair of batteries in well less than 3 years and one set in less than a year. A virtually identical vehicle - different driver different usage pattern - gets treated like a whore without draws, sees grid lock traffic one day, freeway express run all day the next and fire roads, logging tracks and paddocks at the canter along the way, and 2 days a week does 3km. The factory/dealer bats did 21/2 years, the next pair 41/2 and only changed them because I didn't want to send it into a real bad summer (just gone) with any question marks.

Consider modifying/upgrading your system to implement starting fallback & sequential charging.

[Ted]

I have a 2005 100series LC Sahara Turbo Diesel. I recently purchased a set of fanbelts from Toyotain Ingham and replaced them myself. However ,I now have a very annoying squeel for the first 3 or 4 minutes of driving when the car is cold. I have not been able to determine whether it is the alternator/fan belt or the power steering one which is the culprit and I am scared to tighten them up too much. Can anyone help me with a solution?

Fairly common problem. All our 100's have done/do this from time to time. Can just about guarantee that it is the Alternator belts. Rather than the Air Con belt.

Solutions: (Apart from; next time buy Gates belts, they give better service & less problems -like this- than the tojo ones)

1:- You may find that you old belts were hardened and glazed on the contact surfaces and have polished/glazed the surfaces of the pulley/s. Also there may be a buildup of old rubber & grott down in the V which is tending to stop the new belts settling well in the groove. Find yourself a can of "Belt Dressing" or similar name. You may not find it in local auto shop, if not try your local tractor/irrigation pump/farm equipment outlet. Used to be very common when a lot of farms used big wide belts to drive pumps, saws etc from a pulley on the PTO of a tractor. ( OH&S have just taken all thrill out life -no more standing in freezing mud 1inch deeper than your gum boots at 2 o'clock in the morning slapping dressing about with one hand, hanging onto your flapping coat with the other trying not to get blown into the belt & pulley and turned into "belt dressing" yourself!) YOU won't need the 1 gallon tin & old tar brush - a 300gram spray can will do!! My current cans came from Repco.

The directions will say something like "spray on contact surfaces while belt is moving" . Not a lot of room down the front of that engine...mmm....still thrills to be had!! Such directions are NOT COMMANDMENTS FROM GOD.

So BE CAREFUL. THINK about EXACTLY what & how BEFORE you DO.

A quick spray with the engine off & then immediately starting & running a minute or 2 & repeating can be effective - and keep knuckles & fingers intact.

2:- The belt deflection spec for the Alt belts is only 8-11 mm - thats less than 1/2 an inch - and that's with a 10 kilogram weight pushing it side ways in the centre of its longest span (which is not very long). If you think about that carefully - try pushing down on the kitchen or bathroom scales with your thumb to get the scale to 10 KGs to get the feel of how much that is.

I find that you can wind on the tension quite a bit without it seeming to change the deflection that much and then suddenly just "one turn of the screw and confess all". I find that somewhere near a successful setting. Because even the longest leg of this belt is fairly short it may SEEM that it is under more tension than it is.

The Air con belt is much less finicky.

Generally to check which belt: turn on the High beam headlights and the Heater blower full (NOT COLD/air con). If the squealing flares up its the Alt belt. Turn headlights OFF and aircon On with blower on low. If pushing the aircon button on and off causes squealing to rise and fall - its the A/C belt.

3:- The factory Toyota twin battery setup is crap!!!

The way it is setup, if there is just about any fault in one battery it will fairly quickly (and often "quietly") impact on the other battery. Often one faulty battery taking a perfectly good battery to the grave with it, before the problem becomes apparent.

There is also the potential with the setup for some very subtle & technical idiosyncrasy in its behavior when charging. It is way too technical to go into here.

It seems to depend somewhat on the type & pattern of use the vehicle gets as to whether it becomes an issue. We have one GXL, which has a Cruisy life. Sees bumper to bumper traffic about twice a year, does about 50 - 150 kms a day, 7 days a week, in 70/80/100 zones & about 5-15 kms on lightly gravel road at about 20 kmph. Never gets closer than a 1000 revs to redline (except when I drive it), etc. It routinely completely screws a pair of batteries in well less than 3 years and one set in less than a year. A virtually identical vehicle - different driver different usage pattern - gets treated like a whore without draws, sees grid lock traffic one day, freeway express run all day the next and fire roads, logging tracks and paddocks at the canter along the way, and 2 days a week does 3km. The factory/dealer bats did 21/2 years, the next pair 41/2 and only changed them because I didn't want to send it into a real bad summer (just gone) with any question marks.

Consider modifying/upgrading your system to implement starting fallback & sequential charging.

Thanks, JUSTDRIVEIT,

[Ted]

I have a 2005 100series LC Sahara Turbo Diesel. I recently purchased a set of fanbelts from Toyotain Ingham and replaced them myself. However ,I now have a very annoying squeel for the first 3 or 4 minutes of driving when the car is cold. I have not been able to determine whether it is the alternator/fan belt or the power steering one which is the culprit and I am scared to tighten them up too much. Can anyone help me with a solution?

Fairly common problem. All our 100's have done/do this from time to time. Can just about guarantee that it is the Alternator belts. Rather than the Air Con belt.

Solutions: (Apart from; next time buy Gates belts, they give better service & less problems -like this- than the tojo ones)

1:- You may find that you old belts were hardened and glazed on the contact surfaces and have polished/glazed the surfaces of the pulley/s. Also there may be a buildup of old rubber & grott down in the V which is tending to stop the new belts settling well in the groove. Find yourself a can of "Belt Dressing" or similar name. You may not find it in local auto shop, if not try your local tractor/irrigation pump/farm equipment outlet. Used to be very common when a lot of farms used big wide belts to drive pumps, saws etc from a pulley on the PTO of a tractor. ( OH&S have just taken all thrill out life -no more standing in freezing mud 1inch deeper than your gum boots at 2 o'clock in the morning slapping dressing about with one hand, hanging onto your flapping coat with the other trying not to get blown into the belt & pulley and turned into "belt dressing" yourself!) YOU won't need the 1 gallon tin & old tar brush - a 300gram spray can will do!! My current cans came from Repco.

The directions will say something like "spray on contact surfaces while belt is moving" . Not a lot of room down the front of that engine...mmm....still thrills to be had!! Such directions are NOT COMMANDMENTS FROM GOD.

So BE CAREFUL. THINK about EXACTLY what & how BEFORE you DO.

A quick spray with the engine off & then immediately starting & running a minute or 2 & repeating can be effective - and keep knuckles & fingers intact.

2:- The belt deflection spec for the Alt belts is only 8-11 mm - thats less than 1/2 an inch - and that's with a 10 kilogram weight pushing it side ways in the centre of its longest span (which is not very long). If you think about that carefully - try pushing down on the kitchen or bathroom scales with your thumb to get the scale to 10 KGs to get the feel of how much that is.

I find that you can wind on the tension quite a bit without it seeming to change the deflection that much and then suddenly just "one turn of the screw and confess all". I find that somewhere near a successful setting. Because even the longest leg of this belt is fairly short it may SEEM that it is under more tension than it is.

The Air con belt is much less finicky.

Generally to check which belt: turn on the High beam headlights and the Heater blower full (NOT COLD/air con). If the squealing flares up its the Alt belt. Turn headlights OFF and aircon On with blower on low. If pushing the aircon button on and off causes squealing to rise and fall - its the A/C belt.

3:- The factory Toyota twin battery setup is crap!!!

The way it is setup, if there is just about any fault in one battery it will fairly quickly (and often "quietly") impact on the other battery. Often one faulty battery taking a perfectly good battery to the grave with it, before the problem becomes apparent.

There is also the potential with the setup for some very subtle & technical idiosyncrasy in its behavior when charging. It is way too technical to go into here.

It seems to depend somewhat on the type & pattern of use the vehicle gets as to whether it becomes an issue. We have one GXL, which has a Cruisy life. Sees bumper to bumper traffic about twice a year, does about 50 - 150 kms a day, 7 days a week, in 70/80/100 zones & about 5-15 kms on lightly gravel road at about 20 kmph. Never gets closer than a 1000 revs to redline (except when I drive it), etc. It routinely completely screws a pair of batteries in well less than 3 years and one set in less than a year. A virtually identical vehicle - different driver different usage pattern - gets treated like a whore without draws, sees grid lock traffic one day, freeway express run all day the next and fire roads, logging tracks and paddocks at the canter along the way, and 2 days a week does 3km. The factory/dealer bats did 21/2 years, the next pair 41/2 and only changed them because I didn't want to send it into a real bad summer (just gone) with any question marks.

Consider modifying/upgrading your system to implement starting fallback & sequential charging.

Thanks, JUSTDRIVEIT, for all the useful info and annecdotes. I have tightened the belts to as close as I can guess to yourquoted specs and have applied some "Belt Dressing". A combination of the 2 seem to hve cured my problem.

Thanks again and Cheers

Edited April 7, 2009 by Ted