Same problem here. I disconnected the +battery cable from the alt. With no alt. load, the chirp went away. Experimented with a slightly shorter belt, thinking a little increased tension might help, plus a shorter belt might have a different springiness factor. The tensioner pully bobbles quite a bit less, the chirping is there, but not as much, and doesn't last as long. Problem NOT solved.
Because of the belt routing, a reduced belt size swings the tensioner away from the alt. pulley, and reduces % of belt contact around the alt pulley. So, this doesn't gain much. However, going down this road, a reconfigured tensioner and longer belt would improve %tage of belt contact on the alt. pulley...
An interesting temporary fix while I wait for my new style pulley:
I put the old correct sized belt back on and ran it just long enough to confirm chirping. I clipped on a rather heavy vise-grip pliers to the tensioner arm. My intention was to experiment with adding tension while it ran to see what additional tension was required. When I started the engine, no more chirp. I then unclipped the pliers, started it again, and the chirp was back. Re-clipped the pliers onto the tensioner arm and the chirp was gone. Apparently the added effective rotating mass on the tensioner arm was just enough to reduce the tensioner pulley bobbling just enough to keep if from chirping. So, I'll leave the pliers on the tensioner while I wait for the new style crank pulley to come in.
Seems like a design oversight to me. All the other engines I've ever worked on, where I've paid attention to the balancer, have the rubber mounted balancing mass isolated from the pulleys and other things (like the new style). To try to use the balancer as a pulley seems like it would mess up the effect(s) the balancer makes.
20050129: New balancer and belt from AutohausAZ installed. After several cold morning starts, seems the chirp is gone. I looked closely at the old balancer/pulley. There is some portion of the rubber between the pulley and the hub that has been squeezed out, and it looks like the pulley has some wobble due to the messed up rubber portion. This easily caused the tensioner pulley hop, which caused the chirp when the alt. load was extreme. The new balancer is a much better arrangement. It may be just in my head, but seems smoother at low speeds. For parking and driveway, etc. I usually don't use the throttle (throttle?
), and just ease the clutch a bit. It's this range of operation that now seems more smooth...FWIW.