Hey,

My 1964 Galaxie w/ 390 has a fan belt that is squealing something terrible. Makes it so much less cool to pull up in.

The belt in question is the alternator/fan/water pump belt. The belt and the alternator are brand new (for all you purists, yes I did swap out the original generator for an alternator).

I think that the squeal is coming off the engine pulley. Yeah! not the fan/water pump pulley or the alternator pulley... Because the engine pulley is totally out of true!

I know that it isn't the power steering belt because I've taken the belt off it until I can take a look at my power steering this spring.

The funny thing is that there are two pulleys on the engine shaft, the pulley that runs the power steering belt and the pulley that runs the fan/water pump/alternator belt. The ps belt pulley is the front pulley, and the f/w/a belt pulley is the rear one. the ps belt pulley seems to be running perfectly true... or at least to the naked eye. It is only the rear pulley that is out of true?????

Since it is winter and I'm working on the street, I am not psyched to get into something nutty with potential bad weather around the corner and I'm trying to get as much info as I can before I dig in.

Anyone seen this? Is this just a swap out or am I looking at something more serious?

B

Those FE engines cane with many crank pulley variations in cast and stamped steel types. Some are combo pulleys and some are a single groove crank pulley and axillary bolt on. I think I have seen just about every permutation you can imagine! It is very possible that the rear one is defective and the front one is fine. I know all this 'cause I spent a lot of time on ebaY trying to find two identical double groove pulleys for the two 390s on my Mysterion reproduction project. And I bought a lot of pulleys 'til I found a matching set!!

right on! Sounds like you are the FE crank pulley man!

Any suggestions for a simple "middle of winter" fix?

B

Pull it off (hassle but no way around it) and do an analysis of the problem. Might be a cracked sheet metal pulley (happens a lot) from fatigue. That can be brazed back together and run but start looking for a replacement ASAP and put in a good one soon. If it is just bent, use your brute force and big hammer to shape it back up.