rwolverine

Looking for some advice.

I have 92k on it, just replaced the serpentine and the tensioner pully which took care of belt noises for about 5k miles.

It's always cranked slow on days below 20 F, and I'm also noticing headlights don't seem as bright after driving for 30 minutes or more at night.

as far as running the AC and other accessories to affect brightness of the headlights i can't find any situation that makes them dim. Occasionally I'll notice a change in engine speed and the lights dim but i'm not sure what that is.

I did hit a deer on the driver front corner and have a new lamp housing, the collision guys followed the service bulletin for changing the bulbs.

Wondering on reccomendations on how to isolate the belt/pully squeal I'm hearing, and thoughts on what might be causing the dimming and or other service bulletin's related to correcting that.

Thanks in advance!

D-JET

get your battery load tested. also very important make sure the battery connection are tight and free of corrosion!

babloo_73

Did this solution fix your problem? Let us know.. i'm kinda seeing dim lights(not too bad but does not have enough power) ... Restored my headlights but still not that powerful...

rwolverine

Found a day where the auto parts store wasn't crazy busy selling batteries, their tester found the battery was at 90% strength, and the alternator was charging like it should. Never mind the fact this was after an hour of driving backrouds that morning. It's been a couple weeks since I put my charger on the battery so I'm not sure where it's at strength wise. The other complication is between daylight getting longer, and it beeing warm enough to ride my motorcycle I don't really get bothered by it much rigt now.

Battery terminals look clean without disconnecting them so I'm probably going to get some baking soda and brush them and apply dialectric grease when I re-connect.

Haven't gotten anywhere with the belt squeal either.

94vtecmn

May sound obvious, but for the belt squeal, do you have the belt tensioned properly? A loose belt will squeal, thus turning the alternator slower, thus, getting less current to the system.

rwolverine

Yeah, belt has 8k miles on it. Better be tight still! Had a heck of a time getting the thing on as the old one was so stretched. That being said I have not tried to pull it off yet, the squealing I was experienceing went away with the belt and tensioner pully replacement. Is this model year supposed to have the waterpump replaces around this mileage?

94vtecmn

Normally you do the water pump with the timing belt, yes.

94EG8

It's got a chain. Replace the water pump when it goes bad. The only reason you replace them when doing a timing belt is because they're relatively inexpensive (in relation to the labor to get at them) when you're putting a timing belt on.