I'll keep this short and will update as I dive in and find out what exactly happened. While driving today I noticed the clutch did not feel right and turned around to go home. Basically, if I pushed in the clutch, it would disengage, then slowly reengage if I held it down for any more than 1 second. An obvious leak, and an obviously very dangerous car to drive. I got it back home barely and just stopped to stall it out in my driveway. My dad then came over and help me push it into the garage safely. I got out my bore scope and looked and there is fluid leaking from the screen under the transmission. There are a couple items in there that hold clutch line fluid, but the most obvious culprit at this point is the new manual version Hill Engineering throw out bearing that I installed during the conversion earlier this year. Spoke to the owner of Modena Lucerna just for his thoughts and he mentioned he had this happen to him just a few weeks ago as well. I already emailed Ricambi and Hill Engineering to see what my options are and will slowly start taking things off to pull the transmission to see what all failed and what all is not messed up. What sucks is that money-wise this is lame, but doable, but holy smokes I DO NOT have the time to deal with this right now. It will be something I work on 15-20 minutes a day to just slowly get it done I guess. This freaking blows! Any suggestions or ideas, and I will also update here. Always going to be an open book with what I find and learn. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Another possible issue is the o-rings behind the TOB. A well known supplier had the wrong ones listed for manual cars. Even stranger is a parts supplier told me that according to Ferrari, the part number for the F1 seal can be used as a backup if there are none of the manual ones in stock. Some of that I can verify, some of that I cannot. If you are silver subscribed lookup Imahorse and Redneck's Drunken FCA Adventure thread where i went in further detail. The day before the annual I had the same issue. We were able to tear the car apart, diagnose it, put it back together and make it to the dinner a few days later all while we spent lots of time at the event and were heavily intoxicated and horrified multiple people, but that is another story. As I'm sure you know those o-rings need to be changed as do the seals in the TOB because if you use the F1 ones, things like this happen.
Wait...I reread this and am now confused. You are talking about the throw out bearing origin/seals being different, correct? That I know and I used a new manual HE unit. You said "the o-rings behind the TOB" though. Are you talking about the orings behind the support flange? Those are the same with no different part numbers for manual vs F1, and no I did not change those. I just flushed it all out per instructed to do so. Looking for any advice, so thanks.
Behind the support flange, correct. I would look there. And yes, there are different part numbers. From my understanding, 121813 is the correct seal. 166432 is not. There seems to be a bit of confusion around interchangeability. I figure that this will be a reoccurring theme on many manual conversions.
Interesting. I've never even heard those mentioned. Looks like 2 small o-rings. Thanks. Something to look at when i pull the transmission.
I think the replacement HE thrust bearing comes with the seals already installed? I self installed them once using factory parts, and they're easy to put in backwards. I seem to remember the HE unit having them installed already. In my old 360, I had a rear main seal leak, and in my current scud, I had the transmission seal leak. Those are 2 other sources to check. I'd replace the RMS while you're in there if you haven't already.
Had me worried for a second on mine as I just bought all the parts to swap to brake fluid recently. I did get the correct seal though (despite getting the entire thrust bearing as well). So, at least on Eurospares, if you look through the manual parts list, the correct seal is listed.
Yes, the TB comes with the seals already installed. What imahorse is talking about are two additional o-rings that are actually behind the bearing support. If you look at the 360 manual vs 360 F1 parts diagrams, they are different part numbers, and therefore probably different materials. I just got off the phone with someone who knows someone who supplies Ferrari parts and they said that they have noticed that almost no shops are changing these o-rings out. Most (myself included) do not remove the bearing support, and simply flush the system out, leaving these incorrect o-rings installed. Ugh..... Also, second thing I have learned since yesterday that others may not know is that the seals on the TB need to be aligned before install. Ferrari actually has a tool to do this. HE says they are shipped aligned already, but that they can and do move by the time they get to a customer. Again, something that I was unaware of, and I'm not so sure that many others are aware of this either. This is why I try to document so much for people to learn and also to learn from my mistakes. Anyways, I won't truly know what went wrong until I pull the transmission (Could be something totally different), but I do know with certainty that this time I will be changing out those o-rings no matter what, and also aligning the bearing seals. I will also update here and on IG with what I find.
Yup. A $2 part ****ed up probably the only FCA annual I will get to go to. Although to be fair it became quite the adventure. Between how many of these cars were converted without swapping them and how many people got the wrong ones during the duration a certain well known supplier had the F1 ones listed in the manual section, I imagine a lot of conversion owners will be upset when they lose clutch pressure. For whatever it's worth, when I first did my swap I swapped in brand new F1 o rings behind the flange from that certain supplier, believing they were the manual ones. I got 4,500 miles or so before they fully went. I made them aware of that mistake and they fixed it on their site. They could have at least sent me a T shirt or something....
Kind of crazy this was not known, but this is part of doing a huge conversion like this in only the first couple years of it becoming popular. There are certainly going to be things discovered. I just would have preferred not being one of them. Haha. I can actually think of two shops just off the top of my head that don't change out those o-rings ever, and I'm sure there are many more, as well as DIYers. Man, if that's an actual failure point......man that's going to be a lot of cars starting to break soon. Yikes.
It wasn't exactly not known. It just wasn't well known. It has been discussed periodically for years. I was aware of it and tried to replace them with manual ones, but, well.... Yeah there are gonna be a lot of upset people, especially those that don't DIY because paying someone to pull a gearbox to replace a $2 part is really expensive
Are you talking about the o ring and seal on the rear of the release bearing support? If so those are the input shaft seals and don't relate to clutch/brake fluid. Hill bearings come pre-fitted with new front and rear seals. If seals have been missed I'll almost guarantee that bearing support tolerance wasn't checked either.
This is how my last couple projects went so I finally put my car in at the dealer on Oahu for my major. Last one I did during covid was great when I had all the time in the world but being busy makes it tough to enjoy wrenching...and I enjoy working on this car! Lucky we have a great tech!
Nice. Sometimes you have to hit the easy button. Have you gotten your car back from them? I only hear terrible things about them but I could be wrong.
Oh absolutely all wrong if you are hearing anything negative about the lead tech Aron. Can't speak for overhead or people who do not touch our cars but if you need something done to your 360 you can talk to Aron, because he knows them well.
Definitely sounds like a hydraulic leak. Most likely the throw-out bearing if that is where the fluid is coming from. Only way to know for sure is pulling the trans. Hill parts are usually solid, but it can happen. Good move contacting Ricambi and Hill.
