So more work today: First, gearbox drain and fill. Take off the four screws that hold the gearbox shield in place and remove it. I also removed the crossbar under the gearbox held in place by four 13 mm bolts. Once I did that I had a good view of the area to be worked on (photo 1) Photo 2 shows the gearbox oil drain plug. You must drain from three locations...the gearbox drain plug, the filter, and the return line from the gearbox oil cooler (photo 3) The gearbox oil drain plug is a 10mm hex plug...and it was REALLY tight. I needed a 1.5 foot bar to break the grip to remove it, but it did come out without incident. It is a magnetic plug so it will have some schmutz on the end of it that you can wipe off and then spray with carb cleaner. Once the oil has drained, I put the plug back in temporarily and undid the oil cooler return line, which had not nearly the torque on it that the drain plug did. Apply compressed air to the hole the line came out of, and hold paper towels over the banjo fitting of the line itself. More gear oil will come out of the line. Once it blows fairly dry, you can reconnect with new copper crush washers. Remove the gearbox oil filter screen by removing the two 8mm nuts holding it in, and then place a thin flathead screwdriver under the bottom part of the plastic head of the filter. Using a lever action, pop the filter out (the o-ring creates a bit of a suction) and clean it well. Replacing the filter apparently requires only 5 Nm of torque on each nut...it isn't much so be careful. (photo 4) Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Tightening torques for this part are hard to come by. The 550 WSM available from "ferraridatabase.com" is incomplete and cuts out about 20 of the pages of the gearbox chapter. The 575 WSM is no better, with little bits of torque data sprinkled throughout the narrative. I did find in there that the tightening torque for the banjo fittings of the oil cooler lines is listed as 45 Nm. Photo 1 shows what happens if you try to tighten these bolts to 45 Nm. I'm taking any other suggestions for what the correct torque should be for these brass bolts. Boo Ferrari. As I am now stuck waiting on yet another parts order, I turned my attention to the oil pressure sending unit, which is a common source of aberrant readings. The unit is located just to the drivers side of the oil filters and has two wires connected via spade terminals. The way the wires are run from the factory there is significant tension and bend to the wiring and my goal was to remove the terminals, clean and polish the metal, and reposition the male spades so they point in a direction that puts less stress on the factory wire. Photo 2 shows the unit, with the top spade repositioned and the bottom spade pointing in the "factory" direction. You can see how the wiring has to take a 180 degree turn to connect when the spade is in that factory location. Bent wiring leads to failure over time. I began an underbody inspection in the front and discovered that **** is loose everywhere on this car. Bolts are loose, there were numerous fractured ring clamps (Photo 3). It seems to me that this is the kind of junk that leads eventually to endless check engine lights and poor performance. I'm cleaning these things up as I go. Photo 4 shows the newly discovered leaking power steering lines from the reservoir. Does it ever end with these cars? I'm going to have to break down the system and see if the problem is leaky lines or a cracked reservoir. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Since I had just about everything apart, I felt it was time to remove the timing covers and inspect the belts and pulleys. This car had a "major" in 2009 by an authorized Ferrari dealer, so "technically" it isn't due for another year. However, I could see a little oil leakage under the covers from below and wanted also to inspect the water pump for leaks. Photo 1 shows the covers removed. Airbox bases need to come out to do this easily, and I also removed the evap lines to keep them out of the way. The airbox bases are held in by bolts on top and from below. PITA. Waterpump is tight and looks good. Photo 2 shows the drivers bank tensioner bearing. Looks great. The tensioner is leaking a little goo on this side. Photo 3 shows the passengers bank tensioner bearing. Looks not so great. This tensioner looks ok. Photo 4 shows the crank seal sweating a "little" bit of oil. Nothing much. Belts appear in good shape. However, as far as I've gotten this car apart it seems silly to not do timing belts and bearings. My problem is that I don't have a frequency tensiometer or a goniometer or any of the other stuff...nor do I really understand the principles of degreeing cams. I'm going to research for a while, and investigate the idea of bringing a Ferrari tech to my garage to help me do the job (so much of the work is dis- and re-assembly anyway). Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Pete, your presentation is the symbol of your personality and generosity. What you are posting is the best WSM that has ever been published. I will keep a copy of it for my references. Since you are going to replace the timing belts it's a good idea to replace the water pump as well. You can then have at least five years of peace of mind. Sark
Pete, I have 3 different versions of the 550 WSM and they're all the same in section D - the TOC shows all the torques to be on page D41, however the last actual page of the section is D29. Nice.... Have had similar sobering realisations as you, once I got under the car, and it gave me a whole new appreciation of the way the Japanese design & build their cars. Even the lowest end Toyotas are put together better than some of the cobbled up stuff you find under these cars. It's like, why go to the trouble and expense of engineering a high end swaged hose when a chunk of rubber fuel line, a barbed fitting and a worm clamp will be "good enough"? I don't know that it's so much a fault of Ferrari in particular as it is Italian engineering in general. In the petroleum industry, the Italians are the lowest priced suppliers (other than the Chinese) but typically provide overly complicated solutions, which rarely work after commissioning, because of the cheap materials, and their Rube Goldberg execution. Sometimes you look at their stuff and say "WTF were they thinking?" That's why there's such a crying need for Dave Helms and people like him, to re-engineer this stuff and put the quality in that was left out by the OEM. Talk to BC - I've "heard" that he now goes ahead and puts an overhaul kit in the water pumps during the majors, because it's easy & cheap to do while everything else is apart and accessible, and it's good insurance.
Pete, Radiator/gearbox pipe fastening union torque is 2 daNm which is equal to 15 flb listed in my WSM.
Sark, Thank you very much for that information. 20Nm sounds much more appropriate than 45. So today how about something simple. I'm stuck waiting for parts again. The replacement "pollen filter" for the 550 is a $100 item. I will repeat that. A $100 item. Yet another example of ferrari screwing the consumer. Photo 1 shows the removed OEM filter media from the pollen filter. This stuff is junk. Plain and simple. Photo 2 shows the 12 pack of register filters available from your nearby Lowes for $3.97. These filters are of higher quality than the OEM media but not TOO thick. Take a kitchen spatula or a drywall knife and GENTLY fold back the tabs on the metal screen. Use the old filter media as a template to cut a replacement from a sheet of the new stuff. The new ones are exactly the right length and a little wider, so they need trimming. Photo 3 shows the finished product. This solution may not last forever as I see the folded parts of the metal screen eventually breaking, but if you do it once a year you can probably get another 4 years out of the filter. $400 versus $3.97. You choose. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
LOL! Pete I thought I was the cheapest guy in town! I did that modification a couple years ago and my cheap filter is still in there.
As I wait for parts for the major I began disassembly of the drive belts. There are two auxiliary drive belts, one that drives the power steering pump and water pump, and the other that drives the a/c compressor and alternator. Both belts are driven off the crank. Removing these is necessary to remove the torsion damper which is necessary for the timing belts. Photos 1 and 2 show the removal of the waterpump auxiliary belt and are taken from under the car looking up. First loosen the 19mm nut on the pulley, then below it loosen the 19mm tension bolt. The belt comes off once tension is loosened enough. Photo 3 shows why you have to replace belts. This belt is only 2 years old and already it holds significant memory. I imagine timing belts do the same thing if the car isn't driven often. Photo 4 shows my newly constructed TDC plate, fully inspired by Fatbillybob. Thanks for the idea man! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Next up is the alternator belt with alternator removal. Photo 1 is taken from under the car, behind the alternator, looking forward. At about 2 'oclock on the alternator (from behind) is a 19mm nut. Take this nut all the way off. To do this it was easier to remove the charging wire and the wiring harness to the alternator first. This nut screws on to the 13mm tension bolt, which now can be loosened. Photo 2 shows loosening of the 8mm female hex bolt to the alternator, which allows it to move freely and release the belt. Once the belt is off the tensioning bar can be removed and the female hex bolt removed. Be prepared to catch the alternator, it's heavy. Photo 3 shows the alternator sticker. I will be investigating rebuilding it. That smudged first number is a 1. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
For those interested Photos 1-3 show the internals of the alternator: I have a line out to a few companies to replace the brush cartridge, the voltage regulator, and bridge rectifier. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Great work Pete! You may as well send your shocks out to bilstein for a rebuild now so they are ready by the time you need them back in the car. Lets take out the steering rack too and sharpen up the rack and its bushings. By the way the 355 water pump will interchange with the 550 water pump in case you are in a swapping out kinda mood.
Hehehe, I wonder how many hours Pete has actually been behind the wheel of this car vs how many hours he's been under it I think I'm currently running around 1 hour of driving for every 2-3 I've been tinkering. But tinkering is most of the enjoyment for me. Pete, not to hijack your thread, but in case you or other 550 owners are interested, we've discovered the later 575 water pump pulley, P/N 169924 fits fine on the 550's water pump shaft. The later pulley is 93mm diameter vs the stock pulley, P/N 166454 which is 102mm. So the later pulley will spin the water pump 9.7% faster and produce that much more flow. Have just mounted this on my water pump, so I can't say anything about long term effects, cavitation of the pump, etc. We're also going to try out the later 550 pump impeller (also used on the 575's), as it looks to be a better design than the earlier 550 impeller, and I'll let you know if it fits and how it works. It looks like you're already well into rebuilding the alternator yourself, but in case you're interested, there's an outfit called BNR Parts & Alternators that carries Denso rebuilts, as well as new units. They advertise on eBay, and I've had good luck with them in the past with 2 different cars and alternators. They also communicate fairly promptly by email (imagine that) and can customise the alternator if you wish, with smaller/larger pulleys, different diodes, different finish, etc. (Just noticed they're advertising a brand new 550 alternator, P/N 156858 for $650, which is pretty reasonable.) Lastly, could you take a pic of the harness connector on that alternator? I'm curious how close it is to some others that I've used. And does the connector have 2 or 3 terminals? It would be interesting to see how close a Lexus alternator is, for example, to this one.... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I see the 575's impeller has eight blades whereas the 550's has only seven. This is probably to compensate for the former's higher speed of rotation. The water passages diverge less in the 8-blade design so that the risk of cavitation is reduced. Stefano
So maybe you need the smaller pulley with the 8 blade impeller? Anyway I have zero problems cooling the 550. It will idle in traffic all day long as evidenced by my long stints on the 405 freeway/parking lot. The tiny cooling passages outside the motor and the small hoses seem to be a problem with junk plugging them. Most of these cars have had flushes over their life of about 10 years but fewer have actually had hoses changed out and exterior engine passsages checked. Most of the overheating problems I have seen are in and around these smaller hoses. I have seen people change small hoses only to ignore fouled nipples.
The 8 blade impeller will work fine with the big pulley, but if you install the small pulley you should probably also fit the 8 blade impeller to avoid cavitation. Which passages do you mean? Stefano
Stefano, it seems you have a background in pumps, which I lack (I used to be an electron chaser, but am now just a jack of all trades and master of none.) So your technical input is interesting and welcome on the difference in these impellers, and my apologies to Pete on the drift of his thread. Since I'm no pump expert, I contacted a mate of mine in the UK who is a Sr. design engineer for one of the major pump companies there, and he had this to say about the impeller and pulley changes: From the photos, the new impeller no longer has cutback inlet vanes, plus theyve included balance holes & increased the number of vanes. These changes will have the following effects, all other things being equal: The cutback vanes on the old impeller inlet will change suction performance, but its a double edged sword, because usually vanes cut back like the old impeller reduce the suction performance (i.e. increase NPSHr). The vanes thickness on the new impeller looks to me as if its restricting the flow area fairly significantly i.e. a small impeller & thick vanes. This is probably why they tapered the vanes, to gain back the suction performance lost by the loss of flow area. The more vanes, the flatter the performance curve as the hydraulic slip (internal recirculation) decreases. In other words, for the same given flow I would expect the new impeller to deliver a higher head (if everything else is the same). And with the increase in speed (with a smaller pulley), it will deliver more head. The balance holes in the middle of the new impeller are there to reduce the axial thrust generated. This will reduce bearing temperature & possibly improve bearing life, however youll lose hydraulic efficiency. To summarise, with the increase of speed & number of vanes, this will likely result in a higher head & in turn higher flow, assuming all the other factors are similar. This new impeller will be less efficient though, due to the balance holes. In other words it appears that this impeller is designed to deliver better (more) cooling and more reliability (reduced bearing temperature), albeit at the cost of some efficiency.
John, wow, your friend surely knows more than me! Let's not worry about the loss of efficiency, the V12 has power to spare ;-) Stefano
Stefano, yes I always thought this guy was pretty sharp with pumps. He's delivered several technical papers to the API, and to put it mildly, I think he's probably forgotten more about centrifugal pumps than I'll ever know about them....
Is there a factory rebuild kit to the new impeller design or does this all have to be bought piecemeal with a new belt part number or does the stock adjuster have enough play to be used?
Carl, there doesn't seem to be a clear upgrade path. With the new pulley, there's enough adjustment in the tensioner that the old belt can still be used, however the jury's still out on whether the new impeller will work or not. My car is currently in the shop in Houston having this done while I'm over here in the sandbox. When Ferrari upgraded the 550's pump with this new pulley and new impeller (after engine 53755), they also gave the pump housing a new P/N. This makes me a little nervous, but then they've done similar things when using the very same component on different models but giving it a different Ferrari P/N (the electric radiator fans on the 355 and 550 are one example. They're identical fans, but with different Ferrari P/N's). So this is why I decided to go ahead and get the new impeller, just to see if it'll fit & work in my pump housing.
I took a better look at my alternator yesterday, and discovered that it is shot. A call to my local alternator expert yielded the answer "trash it". It is of course a two brush alternator, and the forward slip ring has worn down all the way to the plastic of the shaft such that one of the brushes is only making contact at its outer edges. Simple, right? Just order a new rotor? No. Old rotor won't come out...it appears to have been put together in pieces such that no matter how much I tried I can't get to one of the screws holding it in. Therefore, the only seeming way for *ME* to get it out (me the guy lacking that one critical tool apparently) is to fracture the front of the case, which wouldn't solve anything. Boo. New alternator quoted by Ricambi is $850. Bull. No way I'm going to pay that for a Nippondenso alternator. That's all it is. No special Ferrari magic. Just an alternator from a Toyota, pretty much. Cross referencing Nippondenso numbers is fruitless. You will not find it. Several big internet shops I tried couldn't do it either. What we do know is that the WSM says the alternator is 140A, so I am going to replace it with a Nippondenso 140A alternator. From a John Deere marine motor. Appears to be same case size and schematic, pulley can be transferred from the old unit, and voltage regulator can be transferred from the old unit. However, it appears there is a currently made voltage regulator that cross-references with the old regulator, and that is a IN220 regulator (or IN220SE). I have ordered one of these also. Watch this space for further info when I finally get this thing back together to see if it charges correctly. The cost of the John Deere Nippondenso, new? $330. While I'm waiting for yet more parts I turned my attention to the water pump. Once the accessory drivebelts are removed it is simple work to remove the water pump nuts (10mm nuts) (photo 1). It takes quite a bit to work the pump off, due to the ring gasket inside. Photo 2 shows the pump removed with the impeller removed. The components of the pump look good, and the impeller is smooth and looks new. Best I know it is all original. I am still waiting on a "rebuild kit" from Ricambi but don't really know what is included in this kit so I'm not messing with the pump further till the kit arrives. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Next up was to remove the crank pulley so that a degree wheel could be bolted to it. The pulley is held on by a 36mm bolt sealed with loctite. Very tough. After soaking with WD40 overnight and using my 24" breaker bar I was unable to get it loose. My buddy Fatbillybob advised that the best way to do it was use an impact wrench, so off I went to purchase my new Milwaukee cordless 1/2 inch impact wrench. I love new tools! It took all of 3 seconds for the Milwaukee to remove the nut. Amazing tool. In order to mount a degree wheel on the crankshaft you need to remove the power steering pulley and the evaporator line. I also removed both of the idler pulleys for the auxiliary drivebelts. The Summit Racing degree wheel I got needed its hole enlarged by about 3mm to fit the crank bolt. Using seven 3/4" washers as spacers for clearance, the degree wheel mounted up well. It must be torqued well with the impact wrench so it will NOT move during repeated hand rotations of the crankshaft. Photo 1 shows the apparatus ready to begin the hunt for TDC. Pictured are the degree wheel, the dial gauge mounted on the magnetic stand (also from Summit), and the Fatbillybob TDC plate. I cranked the engine by hand until the factory cam timing marks lined up, and then bolted down my degree wheel to the crank with the pointer at zero on the wheel. The pointer works well bolted to one of the unoccupied water pump studs. With the dial gauge resting exactly on the head of the push rod in the TDC plate, I rotated the engine until the pushrod peaked as evidenced by ascent/plateau/descent of the dial gauge needle. The problem is that the dial gauge is a PITA. It's needle moves if I lean on the engine, if I lean on the frame, if I sneeze, etc etc. The engine is also a monster to crank. It is very difficult to move it just one degree without moving it 5. I must have rotated this engine 20 times over and over trying to confirm exactly where the apex of the needle travel was, so that I could reset the dial to zero and bend the pointer to read TDC 0 degrees on the wheel simultaneously. Photos 2 and 3 show the gauge reading and wheel reading simultaneously. Upon looking at the timing marks at TDC, they look like this (photo 4). They are off by a hair, which translates to about 3 degrees on the wheel. My next mission will be to figure out if the timing marks are off or the cams are off. I will proceed to degree the cams once my new camseals and everything else arrives. By the way, any of you that observe me doing anything stupid here please chime in! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
You are right...it was delivered. My UPS man just decided to play "hide and seek" with the box. My bad I also should clarify that the price for the alternator I listed in my earlier thread is $850 from EVERY supplier. Not just Ricambi. I definitely don't want to bite the hand that's feeding me parts with such superb customer service!