360 Throwout bearing failure at 40K miles

My car started a loud screech last Sunday morning. I am beginning the tear down this weekend expecting to do a full service. I don't have a service history so I have no idea if it's original. I suspect it's the throwout bearing.

I will have many questions, starting with:
My transmission oil seems to have a lot of sludge! Is that normal? From the LSD?
My filter collected quite a bit of material as well as the drain plug. I can tell the rear bumper has been off the car before!!

I will be sending my oils off for analysis.

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This is what came out of the filter. I am certain I saw some glimmers which would have been metal flakes. I am thinking about flushing or possibly opening up the gearbox once it's out.

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My coolant was clean and dark green.
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If manual— does screech come and go w clutch in or out?


That crud might just be from never changing the gear oil. Did it shift ok?

 

I will take a guess & mention that you could have coolant leaking into the gearbox from the heat exchanger under the intake manifold. If you are doing a full service then replace the exchanger while you are in there. Flush the gearbox out as a matter of course.

The debris on the drain plug looks about normal.

 

Disagreed.

 

Are you saying that by looking at that milkshake sample of "gear lube" that you think it looks normal? I cannot imagine that you think that the OP's self described "sludge" is okay. Perhaps you could define your disagreement and enlighten us.

 

It looks to me like the gearbox oil hasn’t been changed in a long time, if ever. I’m seeing a minor amount of milkshake on what appears to be the drain plug, but not anywhere else in the other photos.

Maybe replace the filter and drain plug and drive it a couple hundred miles and drain it again to see what comes out. If no more milkshake, good. I think the gearbox needs flushing a couple times anyways to get the debris out.


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That is not milkshake. I have seen it many times. One difference is you cannot see through milkshake. You can see the bottom of the pan of this gear oil / sludge thing. That is just gear oil and dark sludge from lack of service. Change the gear oil, drive it, and change it again in 500 miles and then keep it for the whole season.

I have a milkshake job coming up in 2 weeks. I know milkshake.

 

Agreed not a mixture of oil and coolant.

 

Fair enough. I look at that sample and take it as a reminder that this car should have the exchanger replaced. My guess is that if it were in your hands that you would take the opportunity to be safe & replace the exchanger as well.

 

I am certain the gearbox oil has been replaced at least once! But that may have been 38,000 miles ago... It's clear this car has been worked on and why I am doing it myself! I have found several instances of fasteners not being replaced or replaced correctly. There are some miscellaneous things that are disturbing but not surprising when you get a car serviced. SORRY IF I AM OFFENDING ANY MECHANICS!!! I have not had good luck getting cars repaired.

It is a gated manual. The screech started when depressing the clutch pedal that did not exist when I washed it 2 days before or when backing it out of the garage the morning of. The car ran amazingly well! Shifted well. By the time I arrived, I had no clutch and could not get it out of gear and it was screeching while driving on my way to an FCA event.

Does anyone know what these are? My 13mm 12-point box wrench feels loose! Are they triple square? The Ferrari manual seems to indicate AV 3219 is the flexible joint removal tool. However, I am not certain that is the correct reference.

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Try a 12 point 13mm socket. If that’s too big, try 12mm.


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We were there at the FCA drive starting point when you pulled in. Hope that things turn out well and that it is all simple. Not surprising that the bumper has been off the car. Seems like so many services and upgrade require it!

 

I don't totally understand how the Central Slave Cylinder works, but from the web:

In many instances, the CSC is equipped with a replaceable angular contact release bearing. Because the thrust face surface of this bearing maintains constant contact with the pressure plate diaphragm spring, the bearing may fail before the remainder of the CSC.

It looks to me like the springs keep the throwout bearing pressed up against the pressure plate! So the throwout bearing sees every revolution that the crank makes, unlike traditional systems that can last >100,000 miles if you keep your foot off the clutch!

My throwout bearing has seized! That would explain the metal-metal squeal that I heard!

I also thought my clutch looked a little "weird", however, looking at used ones on eBay mine actually looks better than "normal". I can also see the wear where the TB seized and rubbed the pressure plate...

I wonder if this is the original clutch or if it has already been replaced once? According to the manual, one of the screws on the flywheel should be striped. I don't see any stripping, does that mean the flywheel has also been replaced? About 40,000 miles.

I think I am going to skim the surface of the flywheel before I install a new clutch. I might as well replace the rear seal while it's off as well.

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I found this behind the flywheel.
I wonder if M69 assembled my engine?
I wonder if they were wearing the Michael Schumacher necklace?
I wonder if we walked past them while we were in Modena in 2006?

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My 04 3 pedal spider had clutch issues at about 25K. turned out the slave was leaking...had it replaced witht the full clutch. My understanding is the flywheel is concaved....watch out surfacing it. Am I wrong? Cheers!

 

post mortem analysis - the poor seal and continuous running against the pressure plate lead to lubrication depravation. A steel separator running against steel balls without lubrication leads to runaway friction/heat and the destruction of the ball separator that seized the inner ring.

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comparison of the current ToB and the Hill Engineering from Ricambi.

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Looks like the Hill Engineering bearing has pockets slightly less deep than the previous bearing (OEM?) leading to slightly higher pressure against the pressure plate.

I also discovered the previous pressure plate indicate the tooling code was 2009. I believe the current clutch disk+pressure plate were likely replaced in 2010-2011. My new pressure plate (just arrived from Ricambi) has a 2019 tooling code.

FWIW - Valeo technical information representative said that design life for Central Slave Cylinder (CSC) bearings have a design life of 4-5 years. I interpret that to mean 40,000-100,000 miles in a typical car depending on miles driven and RPM.

 

Is slightly higher pressure good or bad ?

 

In the older style (1994 BMW 325is) the clutch slave cylinder was mounted external to the transmission and there was a fork that pivoted and moved the ToB. There was play, potential squeaking, and potential to rattle. In the modern CSCs the ToB becomes part of the hydraulic slave cylinder. In the case of the Ferrari, it remains in constant contact with the pressure plate. Thus whether you are idling at a light or shifting at speed, the ToB is constantly turning. Constant turning equals less life. I am pretty religious about keeping my foot off the clutch, so my '94 BMW went 175,000 miles on the original ToB. Sounds like, with a higher RPM engine Ferrari, 40,000 miles may be approaching the life limit. I don't believe the clutch is original, I don't know if the ToB is original, I think it could be based on appearance.

In the Ferrari, you move your foot, you begin releasing the clutch. Higher performance = lower life.
In the BMW you have to initiate some pedal travel before releasing the clutch. Lower performance = longer life.

It's likely that the few manual transmission cars still available today are all likely to have a CSC. They are simpler from the manufacturing/assembly point of view.

To answer your question, all things being equal, more pressure = less life. A better bearing and or better lubrication could still last a little to a lot longer.

 

It seems that the poor quality internal parts like the throw out bearing and guides (plastic in 3 pedal cars, but steel in F1s) cause the car to require a clutch at around 40k miles. Even if the clutch itself isn’t worn out by that time, the other parts might be, so you’re opening up the transmission anyway. I had life left on my clutch but the guide broke.


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The healing process has begun!

For some reason, my rear seal housing was nowhere near flat so I re-cut the mating surface.
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re-installed along with a new rear seal and pilot bearing.
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While controversial, I did resurface the flywheel! It is now flat and not tapered. It took <.010inch to completely clean up so there was not a lot of taper there, to begin with, and I am not sure the clutch disks are flatter than that or not. The manual states up to 1mm (.040inch) can be removed for resurfacing. I decided to go with an OEM clutch disk.
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My yellow marked screw was not evident, so I had to find the 8-bolt ring orientation by trial and error. I didn't realize there was an offset and did not mark it on disassembly.

The new pressure plate is oriented the same as the original. All ready for the transmission now...
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after removing the clutch disk alignment tool.

 

my car had steel guides, perhaps the throwout bearing was replaced with the original clutch...

 

Thx for sharing 67… my time is coming.

 

I pulled the differential out tonight, posted here:
https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/posts/148046230/

I am relieved to see the gears and bearings appear to be in nearly pristine condition for 40,000 miles and do not intend to take the transmission apart. I was worried the black sludge may have been a sign of more significant problems! However, it does not appear to have adversely affected anything.

I did a search on PPIs and I did not see anything about checking the differential slip torque. I am not sure how high it ranks on people's concerns. I want to try and get mine back to within OEM specs.

 

Thanks for the report. What gear/transmission lube have you been using?


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Yes! Inquiring minds want to know!

Kevin