Thread: birds under bonnet

I have bush rats that nest under my bonnet (and anywhere else they can get), I am interested in trading for your birds.

Seriously, it could be caused by dirt in the 'V' grooves and some overspray is lubricating the belt that stops the twittering.

So try a good cleaning the grooves of all your pulleys.

Presume you changed the belt? And did you use a cheapy tensioner?

Righto I'll grab the wife tooth brush and try that first, I think I still have good tension on tensioner as it requires a decent amount of force to remove belt. Might even replace the belt while i'm at it (easy stuff first)

Clint

A cheap tensioner can go out of alignment really easy, i'd be looking at this first. (After the belt)

Dont discount the PS pump though

They can be known to flog bearings. The squeak comes from the pump shaft actually working forwards a smiggle which offsets the belt and releases the birdies... If the PS pump shaft is extended even a little total failure is not far away.

John, by bush rats do you mean white tail rats? With their penchant for knawing on rubber and plastic? (they have a tendency to nest in engine bays. Warm and dry with plastic and rubber on tap.)
An old bushie I knew had a trick to sort them out. Perhaps not the 'greenest' of solutions but it seems them whitetails dont enjoy crossing over ground contaminated by petroleum products. So he simply marked out an area slightly bigger than the vehicle with timbers, backfilled with gravel and this became his used sump oil, dieso. kero soak. Ended up looking black, horrible and stinky but stopped the rats!

Anyways - back to the birdies

Steve

Originally Posted by roverrescue

Dont discount the PS pump though

They can be known to flog bearings. The squeak comes from the pump shaft actually working forwards a smiggle which offsets the belt and releases the birdies... If the PS pump shaft is extended even a little total failure is not far away.

John, by bush rats do you mean white tail rats? With their penchant for knawing on rubber and plastic? (they have a tendency to nest in engine bays. Warm and dry with plastic and rubber on tap.)
An old bushie I knew had a trick to sort them out. Perhaps not the 'greenest' of solutions but it seems them whitetails dont enjoy crossing over ground contaminated by petroleum products. So he simply marked out an area slightly bigger than the vehicle with timbers, backfilled with gravel and this became his used sump oil, dieso. kero soak. Ended up looking black, horrible and stinky but stopped the rats!

Anyways - back to the birdies

Steve

Sorry for the thread hijack. Sounds like them, I have rarely glimpsed them, but have notices white tips to their tails.

Besides building nests in the engine bay, they got inside the cab of my 120, and made nests behind the seats, chewed holes in my aftermarket seats and the lining on the rear of the cab, near the seats. They nested in the set of drawers that used to be in my rangie and chewed the lining. They chewed up life vests, landing net and other stuff in my boat. They defecate and and leave dead toads, frogs and snails throughout.

I have just started building a carport, instead of a concrete slab, I might give your idea a try to begin with.

Back on topic, the noise usually results from the belt entering the grooves in the pulley and any stiction between the sides of the grooves and belt. Miss-alignment is one cause, also rust and dirt cause the stiction. Lubrication eliminates the stiction, which is why the OP noticed the improvement when he sprayed the area, but is not a solution - need to correct any miss-alignment, or clean the grooves. A new belt can sometimes give temporary or long term relief.

Bit off soap on the belt will quieten it down for abit. Also attract the white tails wich got the name from chewing holes in condensed milk tins and dipping there tails in and licking it off .Bastards chewed thru 26 wires in my STi and pulled the grommet out to get into the inner guard
Also sorry for hyjack hope the soap helps

I had a tweet once on my belt I did have a new tensioner as well as some of my pulleys done as the some bearings had gone but the tweet was still there.

I also had a new belt, I had a really good quality belt fitted however it had a shiny back to it we changed it to a rough backed one and tweet was gone never to be seen again. The new tensioner for some reason was having dramas when contacting the shiny side of the belt which resulted in the tweating noise, whether that was from tiny loss of grip or perhaps air that was trapped I dont know..but something to consider if you change all your other things and find its still there