take the belt off and see if you can freely move all the accesory pullies, Smog, AC, Power steering. See if the pullies have an play in them, as 86bluecobra said, if it just makes the noise when you start it, its probably a starter, if it continues, its most likely an accessory. Get a friend to start it while you poke your head under the hood and listen for where its coming from.
bill302 said:
Agreed. But before you torque it down, take it off the bell housing and look the gear over on it. If the teeth are chipped up or some are missing, replace it. My buddy had a starter gear that was so eaten up it wouldn't even turn the flywheel over. All the teeth on it were worn down and broken off. I was amazed he hadn't damaged the flywheel to badly, he had one missing tooth though. But he still has that flywheel, just replaced the gear on the starter and its ran fine, that was over a year ago.
I'm having this screeching noise only at start up and after 20-30 seconds it goes away..it's a stick. starter is less then 2 years old from Advance..already took the serp belt off and spun all pulleys..has no AC, no smog pump..is it easy enough to replace the starter/bendix bearing..starts up fine other then the horrible screech noise..