Remove belt dressing?

JHZR2

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The 91 300d I recently bought runs like a champ, but the belt started to squeal after about 1000 miles. I knew the po sprayed some dressing. It’s sticky and nasty. Anyone have a suggestion on how to clean it?

The belt is an OE Mercedes’ Continental belt. Looks great. I can’t easily find the source of the noise. Any recommendations on how to pinpoint it?

Thanks!
 
I actually use brake cleaner on my belts (while spinning) to remove fluids like antifreeze, oxidation, clean off the pulleys, and yes it has stopped squeaking too.

I have never had a single belt fail in any way, I've been doing this for quite a long time. Belts have had over 150K miles on them that were cleaned with brake cleaner a few times.

I tried belt dressing once, it made a mess and started squeaking again 20 miles later!
 

This link has some info on it. If it was me, I'd pull the belt, spray some brake cleaner on a towel or qtips, clean off the pulley, and install a new belt.
 
Forgot to mention we started a field car after it sat for about four years, belt was instantly squealing and rotating around slower than the pulley speed.
We removed the belt and the surfaces were glazed and cracked, so they went to buy a new belt.
While waiting I reinstalled the belt and sprayed brake cleaner on it, which instantly stopped the squealing.
Deciding I'd try to make the belt fail, I emptied the entire can on the running belt over like a 4 min period, and it just kept holding.
When the belt was removed, all the glazing on the surfaces was gone, and almost all the cracks were gone too. Friction surface was fresh rubber and it looked like it would have lasted fine.

I put that chit on everything!
 
The 91 300d I recently bought runs like a champ, but the belt started to squeal after about 1000 miles. I knew the po sprayed some dressing. It’s sticky and nasty. Anyone have a suggestion on how to clean it?

The belt is an OE Mercedes’ Continental belt. Looks great. I can’t easily find the source of the noise. Any recommendations on how to pinpoint it?

Thanks!
Throw the belt dressing and the belt in the trash. You either have a belt alignment issue or the belt path wa originally contaminated with something. Some brake cleaner, alcohol or wax remover might clean things up.
 
Throw the belt dressing and the belt in the trash. You either have a belt alignment issue or the belt path wa originally contaminated with something. Some brake cleaner, alcohol or wax remover might clean things up.
I don’t have belt dressing. Never would use the stuff. But have to clean a mess that others made…
 
Any belt touched by any dressing compound is immediately junk, as others said. I just wash mine down to remove road grit periodically. If super noisy, yep; brake clean works a treat.

If after two back to back brake clean shots do not work? Replace belt after heavy cleaning or brake cleaning the pulley surfaces.

I've never seen brake dressing snot work well for long and actually damage belts. One of them on a Nissan treated as such without a self- tensioner. Cleaning the dressing goo off the pulleys with brake clean, installing a fresh belt and tensioning to spec on that VQ35DE was the permanent fix for noise and performance.

Previous owner squirted dress compound on until belt *failure*.
 
My old Co. Express vans would have squeaky belts.
Co. didn't change belts due to noise only for breakage.
I kept a ketchup squeeze bottle of talcum powder onboard. A dusting of the belt kept it quiet until a big rainstorm workday occurred.
Noise made me crazy LOL. Talcum kept those belts quiet for 250k miles plus on several vans over the years. Retired now.
 
Finally pulled the belt. I’ve been doing a few projects so I waited until I had the fan and shroud off.

What a mess. It’s a beautiful condition belt that is as gooey and disgusting as can be.

478CD772-C8F8-417F-8BF6-18B9BB741288.jpeg
41D8EEBE-3C81-4070-83EC-B103DF61C857.jpeg


This junk has flung all over and made a mess of everything.

3D4E2DF5-3FF1-48E8-AFE4-F203E1E70B7F.jpeg

9DB2B7F6-AB17-4DCB-9C7A-1D6477FB5557.jpeg
D2A86E3C-02A0-4B7B-969F-965ABE6936FB.jpeg

Looks like I’ll be scrubbing and wiping all weekend, lol. I got some of this funk from the belt on my hands and phone, and it gets everywhere, stains, and is not fun to remove.

It’s been hard to identify what the cause of the belt squeal is. All pulleys look good and aligned.
 
This link has some info on it. If it was me, I'd pull the belt, spray some brake cleaner on a towel or qtips, clean off the pulley, and install a new belt.

Throw the belt dressing and the belt in the trash. You either have a belt alignment issue or the belt path wa originally contaminated with something. Some brake cleaner, alcohol or wax remover might clean things up.
Another voice here. Take off the belt and throw it in the trash. Without question. Get a new belt. Clean pulleys, etc. with brake cleaner before installing new belt.

Unfortunately I can say that brake cleaner on rags doesn’t work, or at least doesn’t work well enough to be worth the effort.

FF4FD944-B233-4EA9-994C-655E9BE1F028.jpeg


Years ago @Trav had recommended Sheila Shine for some other underhood stuff. It is somewhat thick, somewhat oily, and has some kind of solvent in it. It cuts the goop better but leaves it’s own oils behind which I can imagine might affect a new belt.

I don’t want to flood all the pulleys with brake cleaner, it’s going to destroy the bearings if it gets in with the grease.

Any other ideas? This is going to be a lot of difficult work in hard positions.
 
I actually use brake cleaner on my belts (while spinning) to remove fluids like antifreeze, oxidation, clean off the pulleys, and yes it has stopped squeaking too.

I have never had a single belt fail in any way, I've been doing this for quite a long time. Belts have had over 150K miles on them that were cleaned with brake cleaner a few times.

I tried belt dressing once, it made a mess and started squeaking again 20 miles later!
I'm going to try your method. I just replaced a tensioner and S belt to try to remove a squeal upon startup. IT did help a bit, but the startup squeal returned after 2 days, though much quieter. The squeal disappears after the car warms up.
 
Buy a new belt and if the squeal does not stop, it is the other part that uses the belt.
It is an old car, not going to be perfect.
 
Unfortunately I can say that brake cleaner on rags doesn’t work, or at least doesn’t work well enough to be worth the effort.

View attachment 105695

Years ago @Trav had recommended Sheila Shine for some other underhood stuff. It is somewhat thick, somewhat oily, and has some kind of solvent in it. It cuts the goop better but leaves it’s own oils behind which I can imagine might affect a new belt.

I don’t want to flood all the pulleys with brake cleaner, it’s going to destroy the bearings if it gets in with the grease.

Any other ideas? This is going to be a lot of difficult work in hard positions.
Just a guess.....spray with a very strong degreaser, then hit it with a steamer while wet?
 
Just a guess.....spray with a very strong degreaser, then hit it with a steamer while wet?
First you need a light HC to remove the heavy HC. I do this all the time on my helos. Royco 756 makes a sticky mess when it dries. Solvents don't touch it. WD-40 breaks it down so you can wipe it right off.

Like using conditioner to remove pomade, then washing the conditioner out.
 
Just a guess.....spray with a very strong degreaser, then hit it with a steamer while wet?
This thread is way old. Belt long gone. No noise or any issues with new German made Contitech belt for thousands of miles.

The fling off of that dressing does remain in some spots. Very annoying. However… Degrease and steam? Ain’t nobody got time for that!

 
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