Hi, I got my 328 out of the full service, including cam belts, cam seals, oil change ... After some days, I found some oil on my garage floor. I checked in detail, and found that the oil seems to come from one cam seal (the one which is lower, on the passenger compartiment side: this one should be the most difficult to change, due to its location). This last now for weeks, months, and the oil leaks are still here. It seems to increase rather than to decrease. I contacted my mechanic, which told me this is normal that this engine is not 100 % tight. I can imagine that on a car that has high mileage with old seals, no issue. But not acceptable for a just serviced car, new cam seals, and so on. The issue is that the mechanic did a good job, in the "state of art", but could not prevent oil leak. Is it so difficult to do this job ? Is it possible that a bad cam seal was assembled. (All mounted parts came from Ferrari Italy). I think I will have to fight with my mechanic to have the job done again, to cancel this oil seal... Thanks for your advices !
This is BS. My 328 typically does not leak (occassionally a seal fails, etc. and it does), specially after having done a service on it. No way the cam seal should leak right after the major. These do on occassion fail as well, but not right away. In my sincerly opinion, there is absolutely no valid reason for a modern Ferrari (328 onward) to leak, particularly right after a service. Weak seals in my experience are the cam and shift shaft seals, other than that, no other problems on mine. When all of the seals are new and properly done, there should be no leaks. At least there are no leaks from my 87 328 when this is the case. I'd take it back or take it somewhere else if he refuses. Good luck. Alberto
This should be a do over for your mechanic. He is balking because it is a really big job to do. Basically you have to do a belt service all over again and since you already have miles on the belts, you will need new ones. It is also possible that the oil could work its way onto the belts doing bad things. Dave
Actually, its quite common that you will see a leak after replacing seals. Often times the seal mating surface has not done just that (mate) and you can have some leakage. Rarely time will heal this wound, but often times you need to replace the seal and just try again. Seals also get rolled and/or nicked on occasion during install. It is so common that there is a procedure on many Ferrari seals to replace them or correct them without needing to do the belt service over again. So The whole service should not be a concern to the technician - but the actual repair could be. Some of these leaks can be a bugger, and I agree with your techs statement that some of these engines are just not 100% tight. However with that said if your 328 truly did not leak beforehand (be honest with yourself) than quite possibly it should not be leaking now. Be reasonable and talk with your tech. Bashing horns with him or going at him with statements from on line Ferrari repair experts will not make things go better.
If it's the cam o-ring seal, these are a bad design and prone to leak. Mine has a slight leak now. I don't think mileage has much to do with it. As posted, you basically have to do a full timing belt service to get at the seal. My car's due for a major this year, so we'll take care of it then. If you just had those seals replaced as part of the major service, then yes, your mechanic needs to get back in there and replace that seal. I wouldn't "fight" about it. If it's leaking from a seal that was just replaced, your mechanic should do it right. How many months has it been since the service?
I just finished a "RE-DO" 348 where all 4 cam seal o-rings leaked like hell on initial start up. Approx. 1 minute run time and they were all leaking, and yes they were all replaced with new from Ferrari. Having replaced many hundreds of these over the years, this is a first. Looks like someone is playing with new suppliers as the texture of the replacement Orings was different than what I have seen since Ferrari replaced the brown ones. On this car, pulling the engine and doing the entire job over again is a substancial PITA. When its said and done I will loose about 40 hours on this job but he will get the car back leak free. After service care is part of the job you paid for in the major. This job happened to come about right when there was a thread about owners supplying their own parts at the time of the major. I for one say, Hell Yes, bring them! I sure as the heck wouldnt be working a week plus for free had that been the case. Watch the o-rings for a while, there might be trouble brewing here. Dave
I agree with the others. If the seal thats leaking was replaced as part of the major service, then most definitely the mechanic should redo/replace it as part of his work guarantee. I have not done a seal replacement myself, but from what I've read it's easy to nick an edge or place them in a little crooked if you are not carefull or don't know what your doing. Was it a Ferrari shop or someone experienced with Ferrari's??
I wouldn't "fight" about it. If it's leaking from a seal that was just replaced, your mechanic should do it right. How many months has it been since the service?[/QUOTE] The job was done in beg. september last year. The start of leakage appears right after. I waited some weeks to see if it will disappeared, but it is now 5 months, and my feeling is that it is increasing... The mechanic is quite well experienced for Ferraris. I checked with another good Ferrari mechanic. His answer was that, after 5 months, the job has to be redone. Which was not his first answer when I show him in november. It was: wait a little bit, may be it will stop. But, no. Do you know the supplier of Ferrari CAM oil seals : is it Freudenberg, or other ? Are there some issues with orings too ? Oring are simple seals compared to cam seals. I would be surprised that there are some design issues with oring. If they are well assembled, there shouldn't be any problem. Thanks !
OEM Cam seals are made by GACO, the color is usually brown - See pix. However, any quality Viton or better (need to have >250F temp rating) double lip spring loaded oil seal of the correct dimensions should work properly. BTW, Dave, I've also heard a couple of other times that F* is supplying o-rings that aren't quite the right size & cause problems. I'm starting a major & am going to use Viton quattro (4-lobe) o-rings based on a tip I got from Kermit about 4 years ago. He swore by them, said he'd been using them for years & they sealed better than the OEM seals. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Interesting thought. I have used them in the past but not in this application. I will have to think a while on the dynamics of this type used in a flat bottom hole with radiused sides. My first reaction is a round Oring in a square hole would seal better given the right cross section and durometer reading. That said, I am the putz that just had 4 of them leak! I have never had problems with the OE type until now. Enough is enough, I am now going to start further experimenting with items like this knowing that I am doing work for free while paying stupid money for parts with things the way they are now. Dave
Wow. I have been skulking around here long enough that I simply cannot imagine this would happen to you. There was nothing obviously different about these cam seals? I suppose it may not have been obvious from sight.
+1, if the service was just done and you replaced everything, it should not leak.PERIOD. His excuse of not a tight engine is BS...unless you told him not to do all the seals, or you did tell him , and he didnt. I have used 2 guys from fchat to service my cars, and i had leaks when they both did the work, they picked up my car via tow both of them, and replaced the problem free of charge, and paid for the tow charges because the car wa snot drivable and apologized but said it may have been defective seal hence the issue.
If your reply was directed towards me, heck yes, it happens every single day with parts. There are many items I have on a list I would never order again from Ferrari and choose to fabricate myself. Some are down right dangerous in regards to longevity and some simply CAUSE oil leaks where one has to work many hours to fix for free and thats only regarding new parts from Ferrari! One cant begin to believe what I just finished with regarding used parts on the last two cars!!!!! On those two it cost me another $5K out of pocket when all is done and said. Better than $10K paid out and no income for a few weeks because of new and used parts and only because I was trying to save the owner some money on one of the cars. I wont even get into the story about a gear set which I now have 148 (READ: One Hundred Fourty Eight) NON-BILLABLE hours on and still have a bare empty transaxel case!! Regarding the cam seals, I have had no problems with those. It was the Orings on the seal housings that leaked. The ones that leaked were slightly shinny, measured about .11 MM smaller, and I did not think enough to put them in my testers to check the durometer reading before returning them. Verell might well be on to something here, I am going to wait and see what his experiance is and follow his lead on this. If the groove was round in cross section I would feel better about the Quad seals and am concerned about them twisting when compressed. With a high enough durometer reading material and very properly prepared parting lines this might not be an issue. I am confident that Verell will get to the bottom of this and answer this question accurately. Surely something has to change as I have swallowed enough for this year and we are still just starting Feb.! I have stuck with using Ferrari parts only (critical applications of course) for my entire duration in this business but that is about to change! I have enough of my own cars apart now that I can experiment and not put a customer at risk. Talk about test Mules!!! Dave
I have done my own belts and cam seals (twice actually) and I can almost guarantee why yours is leaking. My first clue is that the leak didn't start for a few weeks after the service. Here are two reasons: - The mechanic didn't cut back the cam cover properly. One of the problems is that the valve cover gasket is too large from the factory. Where the valve cover gasket meets the o-rings is about 1-2mm too long. After a bit of running in, the gasket will expand and press into the o-ring. This was brought to my attention by Verell and JWise before I did my major. Well, I confirmed it when I took mine apart for the first time. My o-ring actually had (has, I still have it somewhere) a dent in it from the valve cover gasket. So, that is one reason why it won't leak right away, but can over time. - If your mechanic knew that the valve cover gasket needed to be cut back, great for him. However, that is only half of the battle. Once the gasket is cut back, you have to put a dab of sealant there. Problem is, it is next to impossible to get into the front bank's front cam front side (whew) to get any sealant there. That is why I've done this job twice. I didn't get enough sealant in there (or not in the proper place) and it leaked after I did my major. On the second try, I figured out a fool proof way to get sealant in the correct place. Place a dab of sealant on the cam seal carrier then rotate it towards the front. You are essentially using the cam seal carrier as an application tool. Well, 10,000 miles later, and I have NO leaks on my car. Woo Hoo! Gene
A couple of years ago I finally came up with an easy way to put those matchhead sized dabs of RTV exactly where I wanted them: Get a oral feeding syringe from your local drug store, fill it with RTV & you can easily put that controlled size dab where you want it(see pics). The syringe also works for putting a nice bead where you want it as well. GASKETS WITH 0-RING CLEARANCE PRE-CUT: The turquoise colored gaskets have been coming thru with the o-ring clearance pre-cut(see pic). Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Applying it to the cam seal sounds like a neat trick. I have only done this once but as I recall it seemed like doing the front bank junctures had to be done almost blind. Plus I was prepared to accept a leak than risk what could happen by using too much RTV. Seamus
Too much RTV is a sure recipe for a leak. It will push the ends of the gasket out from under the cover leaving a gap between the gasket's end & the o-ring & cam housing(been there). It's one of the more common mistakes that I've seen.
I do have the gaskets with the precut notch, but when I matched them up, the notches seemed like they would still constrain the o-ring if they expanded at all. If you have not cut them back any and been successful, I won't do it next time. I was just being overly cautious the second time around. Gene
I had the same thing happen to me. I had the major done a year early to get rid of 4 drips of oil from the cam seal every time I ran the car. I got the car back and it drips in 2 different areas now. The mechanic would not return my calls or email. This was in 2004.
I had a major done 1 year ago and no leaks at all my mechanic told me there are aftermarket seals but the are not exactly the same and the real ones are hard to get some times i would go back and ask for the part #of the seal the put in.Cam seal should NOT leak after sevice No way.
Actually, my concern about too much RTV was from reading threads about how it broke off and clogged an oil passage.
I am waiting to get my mondial back from having its major at the local ferrari dealer when I get it back the only thing leaking should be my wallet
I had the exact same problem recently and the mechanic replaced the seal three times. In the end, he told me that Ferrari has a new vendor making these cam seals, and that they do not match the original specification exactly. This is also common in regards to other parts around the car that are no longer made by the original manufacturer. In the end, my mechanic was able to find an original cam seal in new condition which took care of the problem. As to who the manufacturer was, I couldn't tell you, but will definately look into it.
Thats a very valid concern in general with RTV. Generally less is better & often none is needed. If used, when the joint is fastened together, the RTV should just extrude a very small bead, just enough to be visable. However, the point I was trying to make is that, in the case of the cam cover gasket seal area ends, extra care is needed to avoid the RTV shoving the gasket end out of place. If you use much more than shown in my preceding pictures, there won't be much if any visable bead, but the gasket can still be out of place.
