360 belt failure

Wow! Belt should not fail. Did something fogein hit belt on the pothole impact? We have seen some strange belt fails like one where a dime looks to have got caught and punched a clean circle through the belt

 

Improper install?

 

Oh well. This is gonna cost.

 

Hitting a pothole should not have done that. I would imagine there was an issue going beforehand and that the pothole was the straw that broke the camel's back. Do you have some pictures?

 

the fact you were able to "nurse" it anywhere with engine presumably still running I guess encouraging. But if indeed your belt was snapped, I don't see how you'd not have damage.

 

I'm trying to figure out how a belt with teeth can "squeal". Was there water in the pothole?

I'm thinking may there was a misunderstanding on what's actually going on with the motor. If you broke a timing belt due to a "locked up" pulley (variator failure?), it would be banging and I'm not sure you'd be able to "nurse" it to a parking lot. I'm thinking the pictures will tell the story, something is just not adding up here.

 

OK, I've been thinking about this now that I have some coffee in me...Were the tensioner pulleys replaced when the belt service was done? That's the only thing I can think of that would cause the belt to squeal, and maybe that caused the belt to burn through, maybe affect the timing enough to run bad, then finally break after the car was stopped, unless the belt is just frayed and not completely broken. That's the only thing I can think of that would "maybe" not cause valve damage.

If this is the case, which I'm guessing it is, that's a perfect example of why those tensioner pulleys need to be replaced every (or at least every other) belt service, preferably with HE parts. The cheap "lock n' swaps" just don't cut it, and if your "mechanic friend" did the service then he should be ashamed of himself and should be eating some of the cost on this.

 

BEFORE anything is disassembled, take a photo of the timing belt bearings as they are on your 360. There is only one correct orientation for the bearing install -- and this is whether you're using a Hill Engineering bearing, OE Ferrari bearing, or something made by a hack in east Timbuktu:

https://www.ricambiamerica.com/guides/pt360_bearing_orientation

Installed otherwise, there will be bearing-to-tensioner contact and it will seize/fail. This is not a trivial thing.

(p.s. Even if they're removed, there are identifiable 'witness marks' that can confirm if the bearings were mounted incorrectly. We've seen these all too often in the 360 world...)

 

How could anyone mount the bearing any other way? The two blind holes for tensioning do not go through the bearings so they have to be mounted facing out (so you can insert the tool to twist for tension). Boggles the mind!

 

Not everyone has the tool, and a lot of people seem to be in a gigantic hurry. 10 times out of every nine attempts to mount them with the incorrect orientation, the bearing will get bound up on the tensioner and bad things happen.

 

How can anyone install brake pads backwards? I have seen it many times.

This was not a part failure. This was an act of human intervention.

 

Some people are more than capable of breaking a steel ball.

 

Subscribed to actually see what happened here…

 

What a wealth of knowledge this forum brings to owners. The level of transparency this site can bring is comforting. I am sure this is quite an ordeal the OP is trying to sort out, but I am sure he is thankful for the insight. This type of issue is what most of us belt driven Ferrari owners hope doesn’t happen to us.

 

I believe it's human error.

 

Agreed. Interested in seeing photos and leading the modality

 

The problem I've already seen isn't that the tension pulleys were mounted backwards, meaning the adjustment holes are facing backwards. Rather, the tension pulleys are mounted in the wrong position. This means they're mounted too far up, and they're jammed on the tension pulley mounting arms, preventing them from rotating freely and locking them.

 

This is strange, I've had a timing cover rattle loose after hitting a pothole and destroy my alternator belt, but I haven't heard of anything like this. The timing belts are very stout and are not known to break.

 

I guess he's gonna leave us hanging...