[likaroc13]

My dad's friend referred me to another powder coat guy, & I have some Prismatic Powder color swatches on order. Hopefully I can check them out this week & make a decision.

A fellow forum member from a different forum said he bet it was the w/p pulley causing my chirping, as he had seen it happen before. He said it either gets a good glaze on it from the belt, or it gets grooved where it's wearing from the belt. He said you can take a brown roloc pad or green sanding disc on a die grinder and clean the glaze off where the belt rides and see if that helps. You can use emery cloth as well but takes longer if you don't have a die grinder. However, he said if it's grooved or has any kind of lip where the belt rides, then I should change the pulley. He's not the first to suggest the pulley, but I had failed to cross that road until now. Being under the hood inspecting the pulleys before, I knew there was definitely a bit of a lip where the belt rides. So, I bought a new water pump pulley last week while visiting my hometown in North MS. Just so happened the local GM dealer had one in stock. Cost me just under $20 with tax included.

I wasn't exactly sure how to go about getting that big nut off that holds the fan/clutch onto the water pump. You have to remove it first in order to remove the pulley itself. After a bit of research, I discovered there's a special tool made for holding the pulley bolts to keep it from spinning while removing the big nut. Since I didn't have a big enough wrench for the nut, I also had to figure out what to do about that. I ended up using O'reilly Auto loaner tools. They had the correct wrench set & pulley bolt holding tool. I put them to use earlier today. After buttoning everything back up, I crossed my fingers & fired it up. No chirping to report so far, & I hope it stays that way!

Btw, if anybody needs one, the water pump pulley part # is 12550053.