Timing Belt catastrophes

Also of utmost importance is that the person doing the service is up to speed. I bought a Lotus Turbo Esprit super cheap because the belt had broke very shortly after it was changed. The the same dealership wanted to charge $10,000 to rebuild the engine. The guy bailed out. When rebuilding the engine I noticed the mechanic had reversed a conical washer and instead of acting as a guide it cut into the belt. They were going to replace the crank because it was cracked. I asked where and could not get a straight answer.Pack of thieves.Overseas Motors Dallas.

 

Frank,
I think a lot of people here have heard of Ferraris going very long periods of time withiout having issues with the timing belts. The problem is of course the cost when one does let loose, and they DO occasionally break!

I had a timing belt break on my old 1990 Honda Civic at 95,000 miles, a week before I had a scheduled trip to the Honda shop to have it replaced! I was lucky, this was a year that they used a non-interference engine (in the DX not Si) and there was no damage. It was towed to the shop, belt replaced and problem solved.

On a Ferrari, you are looking at near total devastation of at least one complete bank, requiring new pistons, valves, and god knows what else. It's just not worth taking the chance for the cost of a belt job. Of course, on the 308 series, these can be done with the engine in the car and it's not that bad, but on other models, it's a much more expensive "preventative maintenance".

I agree with the previous poster about the tensioners. I have done two belt changes myself (my 308 and my wife's Mondial) and in both cases, the belts looked fine but the tensioners looked like CRAP and they would probably have been the cause of a failure. Just imagine, if a tensioner seizes, the belt will be toast very shortly thereafter. Those tensioner bearings turn at about 1/2 engine speed with nothing but internal lubrication on them sometimes for many years on end. VERY SCARY!

Birdman

 

For Dave Handa....it took that (Garage Queen) to get me up out of the easy chair! LOL!

We fixed that overnight..Hwy. 5 southbound to Mario's Vinyard, 128 to 121, a loop across that San Francisco bridge........onward thru the fog!

It's fine now......

DON"T FORGET you armchair engineers, that comparisons to Jap cars et al, are not at all the same, as in the (post 1977) cars these belts are under the hood with those pesky catalytic converters, cooking in an ambient temp environment only slightly cooler than the surface of the sun...........

Severe usage, indeed.....also consider the rev ranges even of the lowly aging two valves, at 7800 RPM. Maybe a little past that, on some days!

 

As I read this thread, I started to wonder if anyone has done a real test of timing belts' longevity. What I am thinking is set up a jig with the same dimensions as the timimg belt/ pulley/tensioner arrangement, and hook it all up to an electric motor. With something like that you could adjust rpm, heat, even add some oil and really see what affects deterioration, and if the tensioners fail before the belt, another story is told!

 

Forget the cats Tex, a 360 can have 1600 degrees coming out of the cylinder head. I have seen exhaust outflow at the tail pipe tips set uniform pants on fire at idle.

 

Yikes....stop drop and roll, indeed!

I guess the similarities to a horse would be obvious, eh????

 

Yeah, quite an enviornment for a timing belt.

I'm the one in one of the quoted threads that fun was made of for being sorry Ferrari went to timing belts and wishing they would bring back chains (by some person who had zero knowledge on the subject). I have worked on Ferrari's professionally since the mid 70's and specialized in or worked on them full time since 79. In that time I have seen many belts fail. I have seen people lose their cars because they could not afford the repair. Lots of people just don't believe that, thats OK, I make more money doing valve jobs for those people than I make doing belts for the smart one's. I have a 90 TR and I do belts every 5 years. Do it whatever way you like.

 

Some flavor of this question has been asked annually, going back to day 1 of this forum. Almost all of the discussions (mostly 308) have gone about like this one is going. They're some of the longer threads in the forum, generally lots of OPINION, very few facts beyond what's already been posted here.

Search the archives & see if you really have something new to say/learn before continuing it.

BTW, YOU DID DO A FULL SEARCH BEFORE STARTING ANOTHER BELT THREAD DIDN'T YOU?

 

Ferrari went to timing belts starting with the Boxer for two reasons:

1) Easier engine casting (no need for separate chain case, etc.) which probably is a production cost issue.

2) Quieter operation than chains.

As to 1995 F355s, my dealer has told me that Ferrari has acknowledged a potential problem with valve guides on 1995 and early 1996 F355s. It has to do with the quality of the guide material but not all cars are affected. I believe that a leak-down test is required to check for this problem. It is not a myth. I personally know of several 1995 F355s that have needed new valve guides. The cost to have this done (at an authorized dealer) is about $20,000!

 

The reason you won't find many folks recounting failures, IMO, is that they belong to the group who gambled, and lost....

Do you know anyone returning from Las Vegas bragging about LOSING???

Same thing..........

 

Rifledrivers five years regardless of mileage is good enough for me.......throw a water pump in there along with it, if you have the cash!!

 

And aren't about to admit it happened because they're afraid of what it'll do to the car's resale value!!!!

 

What is this thing you speak of.........resale value??????



BWAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I told them to bury it halfway in the ground, nose first, as a headstone....a tribute to the Ant Farm.

And as Bill Kirchen said, "Leave the tail lights blinkin'....."
'Rockabilly Funeral' by Bill Kirchen

 

Dinos had a bad rap for jumping timing with the chains or having them fail so not all chain Ferraris are more reliable, but I would gladly sacrifice a few HP for a reliable chain drive with pressure fed tensioners in my Ferraris.

 

It was not a bad rap per se. The tensioners were trash and the bearings on the jack shafts were not much better design wise. Also due to the valve train dynamics of a 4 cam V6 they and every other 4 cam V6 had a reputation of trashing chains. But as bad as some of those design features were one thing they did very well, they sat. It only wore out when you drove it, the maintanence bills were proportionate to how much you drove it. Can't say that for a belt.

As far as chain drives go the designs in use today bear no resemblance to what was in use by Ferrari in the 60's. Take a look at an F50 motor sometime.

 

Well, the guy wanted evidence of belt failures. Lets see, I have worked on lots of cars, but not a lot of Ferrari's. I have had belts shread and break, but those were on non interference engines so it wasnt a big deal. But spend time around cars and shops, keep your eyes open, ask questions. Walk through Junk Yards and look under hoods of cars you have absolutly no interest in. Lots of broken belts, probably the reason the car in in the Junk Yard? And like BigTex said, when people lose, they shut up. I have personally looked at Ferrari's for sale over probably a 25 year span. I have seen many cars listed for sale in Hemmings with bad engines from broken belts, and in the last 10 years ive seen many online at various websites. I havnt seen one in a while, but I recall a few on Ebay at times. But the majority are probably never heard of. The owner fixes it, sells it without a a peep of its major trouble, and its history is lost.
There was a guy on the Flist some years ago, who had a belt break at, if I remember right, about 40,000 miles and around 6 years. I had talked to him a lot about stuff, but on the belt story he was absolutely convinced that they should be done at 30K or 5 years. Some even thought 15K or 3 years. As far as the damage caused on a Ferrari when it lets go, there probably isnt another engine that could dump as much money in the crapper when it snaps. The guy on Flist spent close to $20K to get the motor back running, and it was the death nell to his Ferrari ownership. He sold the car and slipped back out of site. Yes, some do minor damage you could have fixed for $10K. Some totally destroy themselves and you need a new block along with new heads. Greanade a 308 real good and you could take out the gearbox. T Rutlands had a pile of wrecked blocks and heads from thrown rods and blown belts sitting in thier shop the last time I was there. Why not call them and ask if belts break? I bet they get quite a few that way. Maybe theyll get one of ours next.

 

Timing belts are not all the same. On my Porsche 928, the damn thing is 7 feet long, turns the water pump, 4 camshafts, several rollers... and it's an interference engine. The consensus on the Porsche boards seems to be 3 years or 15,000 miles, with periodic retensionings thrown in. I did the job myself, it cost about 600 bucks, including replacement of all bearings/rollers, the water pump, etc.

Now I have no idea how this equates to Ferraris-- I hope they don't have the same Achille's heel as the Porsche-- but what's the harm in preemptively preventing a major engine blowout?

On a Honda or a Volvo 740, every 60-80k is fine because the stakes are llow. On one of these cars? Come on!

My 2 cents

 

Yes. @ about 6K miles
42K to fix. (88 TR)
Warrantee Claim.
Once warrantee expired I always changed them every 15K miles.
Never had that problem again but the chassis did rust out after about 125K miles.

 

Steve,

thx for the info. spoke to a tech at Algar today. he confirmed your statement. actually said that MOST '95s and many '96s were affected. he also gave a number comparable to yours for repair costs (he actually said $20-25k....wow!)

 

Timing belts should last in theory, but how many times has theory not worked out ? If you still want to use your enginering degree then there are going to be more factors than rpms , like the distance and diameter of cam gears , valve spring rates and # of valves on each cam being turned. In the early ninetys Saab had a 2.5 v6 4 valve engine that needed the timing belt every 30 k, and it was no joke , they were breaking left and right. So although a belt is a belt ,the engine its slipping onto is clearly the variable. All in all I think the Ferrari interval is a bit overcautious.

 

After just changing my belts I have to believe a substantial number of failures are caused by tensioner bearing failures. Obviously factors such as age, oil, not being used etc contribute to the deterioration of the belts. However, the tensioner bearings are incredibly fragile as I learned by totally destroying a brand new, out of the box, bearing with my bare hands. As I went to press (with my hands only - no tools) the bearing back on the spindle I must have exerted too much pressure off axis and the bearing simply exploded. I'm still finding ball bearings all over my garage floor. I know a lot of people will replace the belts only and keep the old bearings. However, the belts are only part of the problem.

 

That will not happen with the bearing in use. They are only fragile to the extent that until installed there is very little holding the two inner race halves in place. They are really quite durable and though I have seen them fail, it is rare. The thing that hurts bearings often is washing the motor with steam, solvent, or aggresive soap. The bearing is sealed but it is more for repelling dirt and foreign matter than fluids. Washing the motor especially with steam or pressure is a very efficient way to wash the grease out of the bearings. More commonly by a large factor belts go bad with a perfectly good bearing unless mistreated by the methods I have mentioned.