Squealing Belt Problems
Pete,
Sorry, I don't check the "My Posts" section of the forum too often. Here's a video of how a Maytag belt and pulley system work. The part about the belt and pulley system is about 1/2 of the way through the video.
The video is from Thread #58081 . If the pulleys on your machine are glazed from belts that the cloth has worn off of, the motor pulley will squeal against the bare rubber on the main drive belt. I have found that the newer FSP (Whirlpool) replacement belts aren't always of the same quality as the original Maytag belts. I've even used off brand generic belts out of a bin from a local appliance parts store that are better than anything new I've found from FSP. I've also seen what looked to be good generic belts for sale on ebay. As long as the part #'s match or are cross referenced and the belt has the same dimensions and a good cloth cover it shouldn't matter. I'm sure some purists will want to argue with me but I don't care. If it works it works. A generic belt is on my machine right now and is working better that that FSP thing ever did. It's the belt with the yellow stripe on it that's going around in the video. A good layer of cloth wrapped around the belt is crucial for proper operation of the pulley/belt system. Before putting good belts on the machine it is important to clean the pulleys under the machine so the new belts aren't contaminated with the old rubber glaze.
Pull the machine out away from the wall, find it's center of gravity on it's two back feet with the back of the control panel propped against the wall. Be very careful during this step. If the machine falls it can do tremendous damage to itself, it's surroundings or you! If the machine doesn't want to slide and it sets on a smooth surface such as finished concrete or tile you can clean a few inches of the floor in front of each foot with Pledge and it will slide much easier. I trust you've cleaned the motor carriage, replaced or checked the glides and put new Polylube back on the carriage and glides? I would do this before changing the belts if you haven't. The best thing to do to stop the squealing is to remove the pulleys, clean off <span style="text-decoration: underline;">all</span> the old glazed rubber with some solvent and coarse steal wool or a bench grinder with a buffing wheel on it. Replace the pulleys checking them for rough spots.
Basically the system has to have smooth, clean pulleys, proper sized cloth covered belts, a clean properly assembled motor carriage with good glides that are Polylubed and Maytag springs holding the top and bottom of the carriage together and a properly adjusted pump. It helps to have two people to do the motor/pump adjustment, one to pull back on the motor while the other sets the pump, but it can be done by one. When the motor's pulled back by hand and the pump is pushed toward the right in the slots on the frame a slight motion can be felt in the motor as it starts to just move back toward the drive pulley. This is where the pump should be held in place and tightened down for proper adjustment. This can vary according to the pump belt. If it's old. The pump may move all the way to the right without moving the motor. If it does that's fine as long as the pump belt isn't cracked or chipped and likely to fail. Most of the time the pump belts will out last the machines and it's only the drive belt you have to worry about.
Be careful to get your stop lug adjustment right on the drive pulley when replacing it. Now replace the belts (or at least the drive belt) with good ones with plenty of cloth on them. Your originals may have had enough cloth on them at the time but they must be contaminated by now, either from the pulleys not being cleaned properly when you worked on it before or from belts of poor quality that were used the last time they were replaced. This happened to me on my first restore. I won't use poor quality FSP belts again. I examine them closely before installation. A side by side comparison will show the difference. Don't forget to get your machine good and level and use the locking nuts. Little things make a lot of difference. Just as a side note. The thread you were referring to where I cannibalized a 408 for my mothers LAT9800AAW - the belts on the 408 were in good condition with plenty of cloth and I reused them on her machine. Just because they aren't new doesn't mean they are bad. I checked them thoroughly before using them and they have been serving her well. I hope it hasn't been too long and you find my response.
Brian
