328 belts

I have an 88 328 gts, the belt service was done aug/03, when should I do the belts again? Is it recommended every 3 years or 5 years? I put about 1500km every year so that won't be a factor.

Regards

Domenic Pede

 

Hi Domenic, You should do a search on this topic. It has been beaten to death here. Reason I suggest that is there are so many opinions and stories. You should be good for every 5 years if you drive the car somewhat regularly. Regards, Vern

 

the 328 i just bought had it's first belt service done at 15 years and 23k miles. think I'll do em again in 8-10 years. I'm in the minority here.

 

Vern's right about doing a search here for a month's worth of 'belt' reading.

But the official word from Ferrari is that V8's with the rubber timing belts should have them changed every 3 years.

There's a lot of controversy about whether this is a service-revenue ploy or real wisdom from the factory. But, 3 years is what Ferrari NA will tell you.

 

I'd change them within the next 12 months. More importantly do you know how old your tensioner bearings are?

I.

 

on a 308's Do you always have to rebuild the watter pump everytime you change the belt? I know that you do on the tensioner brng.

 

Here's my story for this burning question...

I have 38K miles on my '88 328 and the last time it had the belts and bearings replaced was Nov. '00 (2 owners ago). I've only owned the car for a year but I decided it was time to get the 30K service done now. To me, 5-6 years appeared to be a good interval between majors.

After seeing how the belts and bearings looked when they were removed, I'm glad I'm having it done. The belts looked OK (they weren't going to break anytime soon), but they were thinning and looking worn. The one bearing was fine, but the other was a little tight. When it was removed, one side of the inner race and bearings came right out. It was probably the bearing cover that wasn't secured properly. Luckily everything worked out and the new ones will work perfectly.

After going through the engine with my mechanic, I'm sold on doing a major every 5 years.

 

I don't believe it is required by Ferrari, but the factory water pump bearing isn't the most durable thing ever designed and it's usually cost-effective to do it when the belt's off anyway.

I'll defer to the more technical guys on this, but I think the bearings actually pop apart pretty easily when they're not under tension. I strongly agree with your approach to getting the bearings done with the belts, although there are people here who say that if the bearings look fine just leave them. By Ferrari standards, I don't think they're prohibitively expensive. (By reality standards, they're stupidly expensive.)

 

depends on which year. On later cars you don't have to remove the cam belt covers to get the water pump out. I don't remember what year the change was made to the cover design to allow that...it should be in the archives someplace.

yup. Until bolted in, only the grease seals are holding parts of it together. When the bearing is pulled, it's easy for the seal to pop off and some of the guts to spill out if you aren't trying to prevent it.

 

When I pick up my car at the end of the week, I'll have to check the bearing that didn't come apart. I think there is more to securing the inner and outer races than just the grease.

 

I say it is a service revenue SCAM.....no reason a belt shouldn't last 5 years or at least 30,000 miles.