Check your 360 gear oil regularly!

Urrgghhhhh YUK!!

What happened there mate?? Did the seal between gearbox oil/coolant exchanger leak which caused this??

Is there lip type seal between them or a gasket?

 

Happens on 355's too. They have the same heat exchanger.

1st symptom is usually chattering positraction clutches in differential.

 

What lets go mate?? A seal or gasket in there?

Do they perish over time do they?

 

The heat exchanger is just a small radiator with trans oil running through it and engine coolant being the cooling medium much like an auto trans cooler in a regular cars radiator. Sometimes one of the tubes springs a leak and the 2 fluids mix.

As the cars age we will certainly see more of it but it is not exactly a new problem or a problem limited to Ferrari. I have seen it in American, Japanese and German cars too.

The biggest expense in my experience is adequately getting the oil out of the cooling system, not only for the sake of full cooling efficiency but also to prevent destruction of every rubber part in the cooling system. Rubber that is compatible with ethelyne glycol is not compatible with oil. ATF is easy to get out, not so with gear oil.

 

Ah, so the tubes crack?? Thanks for clearing that up mate.

Any paticular reason?? Vibration?? Worn mounts on heat exchanger? Where abouts is this heat exchanger located Brian?

Yeah, I see it all the time in my line of work now.

Yep yep!! It is a PAIN trying to get it all out.

ATF is easy, gear oil takes ages to get out properly alright. Takes time and time is money.

 

In both cars the heat exchanger is located in the valley below the intake manifold and just to the rear of the water pump. It is rubber mounted by virtue of the 2 hoses on it ends so it is as well isolated from vibration as possible.

 

Excellent. Thanks again.

 

Thanks Sunil! That would be great!

 

Does one hear this chatter more or less when going thru a corner or when in a higher gear on a level low speed[50-60mph] cruise,not building up rpm's?
thanks&cheers,
RE

 

Has anybody ever "deleted" the oil/coolant heat exchanger on a 355 or 360?
I'm wondering how critical it is if you're not tracking the car and have removed the cats. to reduce heat in the engine compartment.

Anybody replaced the heat exchanger with a gearbox oil radiator like on the 355 Challenge? I think I'd much rather have that than to find out the hard way that the heat exchanger failed internally.

 

Cats are not making the gear box hot. The cars transmissions run hot even on street cars with or without cats. So hot we have seen far to much trouble with them unless the gear oil gets changed at least once a year, more on cars that get driven a lot.


How many thousand 355's and 360's combined were built? How many heat exchangers have we seen fail? I think it is pretty low on the list of things to worry about. I bet there is a better chance of a connecting rod breaking unexpectedly and I am not going to start replacing those any time soon.

 

One more time what redline oil or royal purple oil should 360 owners use?

Is it the 75/90w no additive in each brand? I think I'll change mine this week.

 

Thanks for the reply. I haven't heard much on this topic so I assume there are not many failures. I did notice that they've gone through 3 part numbers on this heat exchanger which makes me wonder. I realize that maybe they just changed manufacturers or something like that. Or maybe some other reason?

 

Maybe a liquid to liquid heat exchanger could be a upgrade for this matter?
Here is a product that attends this issue before; http://www.dynamtechgroup.com/ferrari-tranny-cooler.php.

Every 10 months I change all my fluids. Maybe because I love to do it myself is helping me to prevent this catastrophe like Brian said. Every time I change that fluid I used redline with a small percent of friction reducer additive. I always clean the mesh of the bottom filter just to be safe. It is funny that every time I take that under cover out and see this bastard I'm wondering if I will be one in the small percent of the failures!!
I study it on the outside shell with a small angle mirror and a mini flash light always finding it in a good shape but wondering how it is on the inside.

 

How many miles would you estimate this has been neglected. If not just mileage, how long since last change?

 

I'm also interested to know if the implication is that the coolant gets too old, turns acidic and causes an internal heat exchanger failure or if it's just poor construction and/or poor materials.

 

Horrible images, like walking into a crime scene.... this is the stuff that gives me nightmares of owning anything where the 2 fluids mix... I also have a Hummer H2 - the radiator has been a somewhat rare common fail around 40,50,60k ish... it to can fail internal & mix the antifreeze & trans fluid.. in the H2 I replace the radiator every 30k ($300 ish for a great replacement) just for a warm fuzzy feeling to avoid a $8000+ repair... my mechanic thinks I am mental but its part of the OCD... anyway we can change these as a pre-emptive strike once every few years? what would cost time involved be?

 

like brian said gear oil would be difficult to remove through the cooling system,how many miles were on the car ?did the owner of the car notice loss of coolant over time?

 

Cars from all over the world have been using that style of radiator/trans cooler for decades. Failures happen just like with the 360, but not often, just like with the 360. No one is wringing their hands over it because it just isn't all that common.


Probably have a better chance of getting cancer. There is something worth worrying about.

 

The 2 that I have had in my hands looked fine internally. They just had a leak somewhere internally. Probably a solder joint.

 

Thanks for the reminder, I changed my gear oil today. I used royal purple gearmax. I haven't noticed a difference yet but I only drove it around 20 miles so far.

The old gear oil wasn't that bad, a few small, small fragments of metal on the magnet.