Justification for Belt services...

What a wreck !! Talk about TLC, yup, a mechanic needs to buy that puppy.

 

Silly boy! Needs some TLC alright.

 

Yeah, every time you replace your belt, you risk replacing it with a bad one!

 

I am very surprised they didn't at the very least remove the leaves, dirt and grime from the interior for the pictures.

If you have time and at least 15k for parts, it might be a fun project.

 

Another one for our rocket scientist friends who don't believe.

It had less than 37k miles too.

I have a 308QV in the shop that had life time belts too. They lasted the life time of the valves on the right bank.

And then there is this picture from a 360. Look close at the tensioner. I replaced this one last week. They often do not survive this particular problem.
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Holy crap!

Sometimes a major service actually isn't about just the timing belt. My car is under the knife right now, and listen up folks there is a ton that can be wrong with these things, completely independent of the belt -- and only discoverable during a true major service.

I wasn't kidding earlier in my post about Luca's college education. When it's all finished, I'll spill the beans.

Brian, Dave, Tom, etc. aren't just yanking your chains about why these cars need to be serviced. I am 100% confident that although my belt would not have broken, my car would be toast if I embarked on another summer-season of rallies, track days, etc. Pulling the lump and slapping on a belt would have been about 3% of the job.

 

my car is going in for a "checkup" prior to going in for surgery in a few weeks. The mechanic wants to see if there are any other issues to be addressed so we can do it all at once and dont have to wait for parts, rather than pulling the engine out THEN finding he needs a part thats back ordered for months (you know what i mean?)

Aside from the valve issue what other things should i MAKE sure the mechanic checks for?

 

Impossible. Until you pull it apart, you won't know what you need.

Once my engine was out and certain conditions explored, we knew what additional items were needed. And more to the point, let your mechanic do the work professionally and methodically. There is little doubt he/she will need unexpected stuff that will need to be ordered.

It sucks. I know. I'm not just some greedy 'parts whore'. I feel the pain. Literally, I feel it right now on my own car.



(Yo, Luca... get papa another Kahlua! And be quick about it, punk.)

 

Hey Luca! While you're at it, pour 2.

 

For 355's, I've read by 3yr/30k and 5yr/30k for major with belts. Which is the right one? (i.e what does the manual say?)

I would assume if the car covers 30k over the 5 years (instead of say 4k over 3 years) so the belts are used regularly that would be preferable over sitting for prolonged periods, drying and wearing in lumps.

 

The manual says 5 years/30k. But that was updated a few years ago to 3 years/30k by Ferrari.

 

Looks like someone's nightmare

 

.....
He is a good boy!!

 

I've been giving the 348 in the original post some thought, and what I'm coming up with is that I don't think I'd want that car if it was offered for free. Between parts, labor and time, I'd rather buy a "normal" one that runs. It would probably be the same money to buy a nice running example as it is to get this one running and cleaned up, but without the hassel.

 

I am thinking complete teardown, send heads out to Headwerks (free plug for local cylinder head gods) for a better than new set of aftermarket valves. New aftermarket JE pistons (I've used them on Lambos and Maseratis). Crack test rods, possibly cams (check for straightness).

The obvious unknown is the condition of the cylinder bores and whether any are cracked or irrepairably scored.

Give it ALL the other major service stuff it needs and sometime short of Y3K it should be good to go (maybe with a few extra cc's).

Not a project for a beginner.

 

Its no use making many comments, there will just be another thread tomorrow with some clown asking why it needs doing, or someone saying how far he went on his. Why bother to clean the leaves out, some of you already wouldnt want it if it was free. Its junk now, right?.

You argue how far they will go without service, carp about the expense of doing it, and when it happens to some other poor bloke, probably after they listened to all your advise on why they dont need to service the car, now you tell them the cars junk.

IMHO, anyone who has recommended belt service beyond factory service recommendations, owes this guy some money. Its like giving your friend a 20 minute diving tank and telling him its good for 30.

 

Paul, I'm not an advocate of "deferred maintenance" (I just sunk almost $7K into my own 30K service), but ripping out an engine to replace a timing belt and ancillaries every 3 years is a bit over-the-top in my humble opinion. Of course, my car is merely a cruiser and I rarely drive it over 70 mph, so I guess that would be a factor, too. To each his own.

 

Sorry, but Enzo`s just fallen of his chair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Your kidding right ??? I drive that fast in my VW on the way to corner store !

I hope that it is code for 170

 

Look, I mean no disrespect to anyone, and anyone is certainly free to do as they wish thier own stuff. No problem there. I may not agree, but so what.

However, lets turn this round the other way. Some poor SOB joins Fchat, just bought him or her self a 3X8 or whatever, hell, it could be a 550, but he asks about maintenence. And so many guys in here keep spouting all this defered maintenence garbage, keep wailing over and over about how Ferrari is just ripping ya'll off, no way you need to do as "they" say, and oh, "looky me, I just went blah blah blah miles and blah blah years and NOTHING happened". Well great. They dodged the bullet so now they're car is the poster child for how long belts last?

Well, I am sorry. This car is now junk, your guys words, not mine. POS car? Not worth fixing? Wouldnt want if it was? Oh really? And where were some of these guys last week when they advised people on here in one of the daily belt threads that it was "okay" to go forever on a timing belt? This guy maybe knew better, maybe he just sluffed it off, I dont know. But he could just as easliy have listened to some of you guys telling him not to be concerened. Well, most likely this was his first and last Ferrari. He didnt save $7K on service, he lost his entire investment. And if this happened to anyone who came here looking for advice, and he accepted this BS, arent the ones advising it responsible?

I'm sorry guys, but this is really sad. He dont have the other head off yet, but we know its just as bad so why bother. So both heads and all the pistons are junk, the valves are gone, so your right, its barely worth fixing, if at all. Its all junk now. And you just have to estimate the damage in excess of $20K. Just look at this mess the next time some of you guys want to tell someone not to worry about a belt service. This is the EXACT damage some of us have tried to warn people about that is possible. This is why you cant compare a Ferrari to a Toyota or a Honda. Heck, you could just about buy a new Toyota or Honda for what this would cost to fix. I really feel sorry for both the guy, and the car. Hope he wasnt married and talked his wife into this mess, or he maybe lost a lot more than a car. The fact that there are independent shops out there advising extended service intervals to customers makes this all the worse.

I am going to post these pictures everytime another belt thread comes up.
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Isn't it presumptuous to assume that this car wasn't current on the maintenance? Afterall, a timing belt, a tensioner bearing, a roller, a water pump can fail at any time.

For the record, I do think Ferrari's recommended engine-out-every-3-years is a complete ruse. I find it a far riskier proposition to keep pulling these engines apart and putting them back together than leaving things that are working perfectly to sit for a while. My rule of thumb is 7-8 eight years between changes no problem whatsoever.

My personal experience:

1982 308 - bought it in 2002 and did the FIRST belt service
1990 348 - bought it in 2004 and it had just had the FIRST belt service
1990 348 - bought in 2006 and performed the FIRST belt service

Am I recommending going 10-15-20 years between changes? No, but 3 years is equally nuts.

 

In the ebay ad, it was not mentioned how long it was since the last belt change. I am guessing that it is more than 5 years.

I believe that most members would say they would do the belt change in 3-5 years depending on how risk averse they are. I would do a 4 year/30k whichever is earlier on my car. The ones recommending don't change it ever or change it every 10 years are playing with fire. Also it is dangerous advice for newbies.

 

Sounds good, as long as you know 100% this "belt failure" was not caused by anything else. ie: tensioner, debris, loose shroud rubbing, oil on belt, even the fact of having "one" belt doing double duty running both cams vs other f-cars.....etc.... This could have possibly been "prevented" by an inspection too. It is a sad story no doubt either way.

No one here is saying to not change the belts. Most know the factory "recommended" intervals. So anyone here is free to change them even more often if they would like and that is noooo problem. It is when they seek the accord of others to their superior "method" that it becomes an issue

My point exactly...

 

Well, all I know is that guys like Rifledriver are fixing crap like this all the time, all over the world, and places like Rutlands get the leftovers. And people like Rifledriver have NOTHING to gain from anyone by advising proper intervals, they make a lot more money fixing garbage like this. My point is that, YES, many of these cars "can" far exceed the limits placed by the maker. My point is that some percentage of these cars WONT. If your looking for 0% potential for failure, maybe the factory time will give it. I personally think thats what they have tried to advise, because I truly dont think they like seeing junk like this. They built thier company on the tried and true formula of race on Sunday, sell on Monday. They have to like building cars as good as possible and see people have fun with them. you cant keep making cars this pretty and not give a rats a$$. Rifledriver probably could tell us his experiences, but I just dont know how many here would give it much weight.

Personally, I think its really freakin cool that someone built a car that not only is required to be heavily serviced, but intentinally built it for engine out service. Its a GD race car for God sakes.