Front Bank Cam Belt Pulley

A strange noise developed today from the engine compartment. First it sounded like the passenger door was not shut all of the way as a vibrating noise was coming from that area of the car. As I continued to drive, the noise become so bad that I had to pull the car over to the side of the road in an effort to determine what was going on.

The engine was running perfectly fine, however, it was apparent that the noise was coming from the one of the belts. After I got the car home, I determined that the front bank lower cam belt pulley was extremely loose. With the engine off, I can actually move the pulley with my hand. I believe that the noise was coming from the pulley bumping into the cam belt cover. I also noticed a few drops of oil on the exhaust just below the pulley.

It appears as if the cam belt pulley is behind the main crank shaft pulley. Will this require removal prior to repairing the cam belt pulley.

Is the pulley just loose or it something more serious involved?

Thanks for everyone's help in advance.

 

When you say loose, that you can move the pulley with your hand: Do you mean in and out? Like the bolt securing the pulley got loose?

 

i had a similar experience early this year and about 1000 km after an engine out.

it turned out the be e broken (!) drivepulley nut, the pulley came loose and hammered the axle making a slowly growing noise

 

cam drive bearings are worn out and will need to be changed.
search the archives and you will find several descriptions of how to do.
with the right tools you can do it with the engine in the car.

 

Yep, I agree. Been there, done that, except mine ate 16 valves.
To state the obvious: Don't even turn the engine over with the starter! The belt could slip on the loose pulley at any time and bend the valves. "Verell" can be a great help with this repair. And yes, it can be done in the car BUT, it's A LOT easier with the engine out. If your cars been needing new hoses, engine is filthy, leaks, etc, this would be good time to do it all.

 

A good write up:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=103998&highlight=cam+seal

It's pretty simple enough. It's in my note to check the lower cam drive pulleys during the belt change, it's easier and save labor and the belts if you do them all at the same time.

 

Thanks for all of the advice!

If I were to consider having the service performed by a shop, what should I expect to pay?

 

I'm assuming that it's the outer bearing that's failed & not just the highly unlikely event that the nut came loose.

That thread describes a simple outer bearing change where the outer bearing was just becoming noisey.
It's NOT simple when the outer bearing bearing has actually completely failed as it sounds like this one has. Unfortunately when it's that loose, the seal and inner bearing also require replacing. This means pulling the timing drive cover.

Search the Old Ferrari chat for robertgarvin & my cam drive bearing replacement threads. Search the body of posts for phrases like: 'cam drive' 'timing drive'. Those projects went quite well, especially as it was the first time either of us had done it, and we were concurrently pioneering the 'engine in the car' procedure.

It's also a project that can have things go wrong (Been there with JWise) here's a link to the thread:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28437

I agree. It's quite a bit less work to do it in the car IF that's the only thing you're doing.

However, if you're going to be taking advantage of the project to do a bunch of other things, then I'd pull the engine.

 

Curiously, how many miles do you have on your Ferrari (the original poster)?

 

Its a 79 GTB with 48,000 miles.

Thanks again, I will review the threads and let you know how things turn out.

 

I'm doing this right now on a 2V

You might wanna take a look at this as well.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=248319

Lee