Just how bad is it when belts go bad?

bent valves, heads off...BIG BUCKS...AS IN VERY BIG BUCKS..

 

KA-BOOM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I believe new engines are around $8k. Rebuilds probably north of 10k, depending on how many RPMs your engine is turning when the belt (or bearings) lets go.

The question is:

How bad is it TO YOU to justify the $2k service?

 

Is this bad enough?

 

What kind of engine for $8K?

 

Very bad news if this happens, prevention is always better than cure!!!

 

Rebuilt longblock 3 liter, 2 valve from T. Rutlands last I checked. Probably more now.

 

oops, forgot these...
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I just took the belts off of my car. 12 years old, about 6,000 miles. The belts look like new, no deformation of teeth, no cracks, engaged in pulleys like the new ones. The tensioner bearings are another story. One was like new, the other was on its way out. Not really rough, but not good. You could definately feel the roughness in the bearing. Just my opinion but I don't think the belts are much of an issue. It is the other stuff that makes them fail; bearings or water pump. I changed the belts and bearings myself. I even made a camshaft clamp for about $5.00 that worked great. I have about $300.00 in the belt change. At that price every 5 years sounds very reasonable. I want to check things at least that often anyway.

I also have every set of belts that have ever been on my car, they came in a box in the trunk. They all look just as good as these. The bearings were only changed once before, these were also in the box. They were in good condition as well. The car has 62,000 miles on it. The tensioners were full of gook though and needed to be completely cleaned. In fact most of the time in this job has been spent cleaning. I am doing a lot more than a belt change and have been working on this for the past 3 months a couple hours at a time. It's a long winter anyway so what's the hurry.

 

Ouch!

 

BTW I think the QV is a much bigger concern than the 2V. The belt carries almost twice the load.

 

'Nuff said, I would think. Just do it.

If it helps, consider it insurance.

 

As bad as those pics look it can get a lot worse.

Last I heard I thought TR wanted $12K for a motor? Add another $5K if your motor is fried, they want rebuildable cores IIRC.

Unless your time isnt worth anything, you can figure an honest 20-30 hours to R&R your motor and swap everything over and have it running again. At $125 hour at a shop, your pushing $4K, plus the motor, plus odd stuff. $20K worth of needless work just to save some maintenence and end up with the wrong motor in your $25K car doesnt sound very cost conscious. Thats not even considering the months and months you wont have a car. Add $10K for a 348, and another $10K for a 355. I wouldnt even wanna guess on a V-12.

 

Those are some pretty graphic pictures!!!!!

 

Looky here for pics of what happens when the tensioner goes bad...
Everybody is too focused on the belts.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=104937&highlight=leakdown+test

 

I've known of two V12 Lamborghinis that had piston-to-valve bonks. In two different shops in two different cities, the parts/labor added up to near $40,000!!! One was a Diablo, the other a Countach.

It is possible to break a belt and not break anything, but it's more possible that something will happen.

 

Dang, where do you get a service for $2000. Do you mean an oil change?

 

Well... let me look here... $8219.63. Just to replace the exhaust valves on the front bank and fix related damage. There ya go!

I ended up buying a completely rebuilt engine from T. Rutlands, and though there were some problems with it, they were great about making things right.

Don't ignore your tensioners!

 

Not on a Ferrari AFAIK. It jumps time far enough and your gonna mash valves at the very least.

Re: tensioners. Yes, we do focus on the belts a lot, but either way its gonna crash valves. And on a 348 you have one belt, and then it shares the water pump, so you have a lot more things to go bump in the night to take out both banks.

Tmobileguy still dont have his car fixed, and thats coming up on a year pretty soon.

 

According to the service records on my '83. It was $7000 to replace bent valves back in 1986.

 

So reading the proceeding posts it comes down to this, roll the dice & take your chances . This would be an ok proposition if the cars were worth big money, but when the price of repairs equals the value of the car, this is a no brainer. Change the belts & tensioners. I just had it done for under $1200. The car had a complete service 6 years ago with very few miles since. I deemed the Valves were still in adjustment, so we just did a belt/tens & coolant flush. It seems the 308 is destin to follow what happend to Jag XKE's for many decades, the price of admission was low , but the cost of maintanace is high & many many cars became neglected.
Being a ferrari owner for almostars if I learned one thing it is this: the only time this car has cost me a lot of money, is when I tried to shortcut & save money. Do it right the 1st time, anything else is a false economy

 

Yikes! I am keeping these pix in my garage as a reminder!

 

pdmracing,
well said mate........... ask your self do you really wanna take that chance do you really wanna go through that heart break(do you really want dressing.. on ur valve salad) for the sake of $1000 bucks every couple of years to do belts and bearing, picture this you gotta pull the engine out, why cause of belt failure you know there's damage in there but to what extent, that's nite mare material..... and you guys are lucky at least you can get f parts in USA parts over here man... there as rare as rockin horse sh##. good luck you guys .... she's gonna blow captian cheers rizzo