Squeaking from crankshaft pulley area

Now as the time has come to sell my winner red coupe, I told the future owner I'd get some stuff done before he can have the car.

There used to be a squeaking noise that I thought was caused by one of the aux belt pulleys. Not too bad a squeak but annoying enough. So a few months back I mounted new pulleys (except for the lower fixed one on the first belt as it still felt fine to me) and funny enough, the squeaking was still there. Now I thought it might be the cambelt tensioner or fixed pulley and as the cambelt change would have been due in May anyway, I thought I'd just get it done after the holidays.

Over the holidays, the squeaking became worse. Especially with a cold engine. After a few miles it was gone and came back after the next cold start.
Over the last few days it became even worse. It actually became more of a screeching noise. With the engine warm and a few miles done it sounds like your typical pulley bearing gone (chirpy squeaky chirp chirp).

So today I threw on a new water pump, tensioner, pulley, cambelt and lower pulley for the first aux belt - and the squeaking is still there. Even with the aux belts off.

On closer inspection, it seems to come from the crankshaft pulley region.

Would anyone have an idea what could possibly cause this?
I mean it's loud. Really LOUD.

The only things I could possibly imagine in that region would be a main bearing (then again, that would cause a different noise and the engine would have probably been dead by now after >2000 km done with the noise present), oil pump (I would expect a different noise there as well and oil pressure lower than usual) or the shaft seal.
In case of the shaft seal, I would expect oil leaking from there but there is none.

Any hints?

Could also be the front bearing on the balance shaft. As you say the only other things could be the oil pump or the main bearing at that end.

Oil pump or balance shaft bearing would be most likely, but very rare for either to fail.

Would a video help others diagnose the noise?

Also, you could try the old trick of using a screwdriver as a stethoscope to find exactly where it is coming from. Touch the metal end near the point and put your ear to the handle. Noise is transmitted along the screwdriver to your ear.

Obviously, be careful of moving parts / belts / electrickery, etc.

Funny you should say this - I actually thought the same and tried to capture the noise last night.
This is from inside the car with the right hand side window open and a wooden wall about two yards away after some miles of driving. So this is the mild version:

Noise



I'm using the good old screwdriver trick quite often. But with this noise I don't even want to stick my bare ears into the wheel house longer than a few seconds. When it's loud, it's so loud that it actually causes noticeable temporary hearing damage straight away when you come near it (well, I'm a sound engineer so my ears might be a bit more sensitive).

What I noticed:
The noise was strongest and started straight after starting the engine when it was dry.
A few hours later, it only started after about one minute idling but it had been raining for an hour or so. Also, the noise level is much lower when roads are wet. Over the holidays, I had it after every cold start and it would eventually go away after a few minutes / miles and not come back over a 400 km distance until the next cold start in dry weather.

Checked the alternator is still going round?

The noise is still there with the aux belts taken off. So it's none of the aux pulleys nor steering, alternator or A/C compressor.

Meanwhile it started without the noise twice (but it did come back after a minute or so) and the noise itself went back to existing below ~1500 rpm and much lower volume.

Try taking the pulley off the engine to see if the inner and outer sections are properly attached. It doesn't sound like a bearing as the noise doesn't seem to be synchronous to engine speed.

Forgot to mention: Noise is still there even with pulley off.
Pulley itself looking fine, no cracks in the rubber or anything.

At the moment, the noise only comes on when engine is idle and rpm is less than ~1200.
Meanwhile, I went through all the engine noise videos I could possibly find and - funny enough - it sounds exactly like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86no_t-4M4Y

Mine squeaked really badly after a belt change turned out it was a tensioner OE Fiat supplied from AA that was knackered from the off! Drove me mad for a few weeks until it was changed out took up to 8miles to ease off.

I had a squeaky pulley/bearing on my coupe approx 17 years ago. I took it to a small local Fiat dealer to have a look since it was still under warranty. The first thing he did was start the engine and then pour some water on each pulley/bearing area. When the squeaking stopped he’d found the culprit. Maybe not ideal for the alternator bearing but so simple and no dismantling required. As mentioned above it’s not impossible for a new bearing to be faulty.

I had a cam belt idler pulley seizing up and caused a horrible noise like a high pick squeal