1995 355 noise

It could be the hangers for the muffler, or your flywheel needs to be repacked.

Run a search of the archives for more info.

 

I had a similar noise in my 95 355. It would make a tingling, rattling sound for a few minutes upon cold start up and the noise would completly go away after a few minutes. It would not return until the next cold restart. This noise sounded exactly like you would imagine a loose alternator fan would sound like. Ting, ting....ting...ting. very much like light steel or sheetmetal scraping or rubbing up against a rotating part. This noise could not be heard inside the car, it wasn't real loud but it drove me nuts for about 6 months. It seemed to be getting louder and lasting longer as the months went by.
Believe me, I checked everything...muffler, exhaust, sheetmetal, muffler supports, alternator belt, etc. It was very hard to pin point and would totally go away in a few minutes so diagnostics was difficult.
The noise would get louder for a few seconds when the clutch was let out to back out of the garage, or in first gear when just letting the clutch out then get quieter. I checked the motor mounts seventeen times.
OK...the fix turned out to be the tensioner bearings lightly.....very lightly, rubbing on the tensioner assembly.
How I found it was during an engine out service, I replaced the tensioner bearings with the Hill Engineered ones...when I did that......THE BEARING WOULDN'T TURN AT ALL. It was locked up because it rubbed the tensioner support so hard it wouldn't turn!!!!
The reason is two fold.....First the Hill bearings are just very slightly larger in diameter, probably .015" or so larger.. And the early 95 cars used a heavier tensioner support. This tensioner support was replaced in mid 95 with a redesigned support that is thinner. This gives about .030" or so space between the tensioner and bearing.
If you can't find the noise...I'd drop the engine and take a good look. This only applies to the eary cars. By 96, I'm told, all 355's used the redesigned support.

 

Great post! Thanks for the valuable info. Could the older tensioner bearing support be machined to relieve the rubbing area without having to replace it with a newer model?

 

Welcome to the forum!
Ernie has spoken (and it's mainly thanks to him that I know the little that I know - his posts on engine removal encouraged me enough to do the major myself). Take the time to do a comprehensive search of the archives.
Diagnosing a rattling or a chattering can be difficult enough with the car to hand never mind doing it from long distance. However, with the few things I have learned, here is my two cents worth:
You said that the major has just been done. The normal thing would be to insist that the mechanic fix the problem, whether it was the tubi or something else. Was it an engine out major?
It's not clear from your post whether the noise is there all the time now or whether the noise depends on whether the car is started from cold. Noises from the cam tensioner bearings (as described by 83ferrari) or (as in my case) with the hydraulic tensioners would tend to be relatively light, rapid, tap, tap sounds and could well go away after the engine warms up. Note that if it were associated with the tensioners, the noise would not disappear when you pressed the clutch pedal with a cold engine.
Let's hope that it's the first of Ernie's suggestions - muffler hangers; that would be the easiest and cheapest to fix (even if it means engine/transmission mounts as well). As for flywheel grease, we need to know if there is a rattle when you switch off the engine (do not depress the clutch pedal for this test).
Maybe when you come back with some answers to these points we can go a stage further.
I would like to be able to help (if I can) because so many have helped me.

 

You can say that again.

Awesome tip Michael, and thanks for sharing that information.

Well what do you think the old bearing was doing???

Hahahaha! I kid, I kid.

 

Yes you can.
My F dealer lightly ground the early (355 ) tensioner supports because there were clearence issues when even some of the factory tensioner bearings were replaced.
My car was one of 355's that had this mod....I did'nt take any pictures of this at my last engine out earlier this spring..or I would post them..but I noted the light sanding marks to gain the extra clearence for the bearings.
And, as a result, when I installed my Hills Engineering tensioner bearings I had no clearence issues.
p.s. my car has had 4 engine out services...the F dealer did the first 2 (used OE bearings)and I did the last two (with Hills Engineering bearings ).

 

Yes, I had this one done on my 95. We just ground it down with a hand grinder (off the motor) .This was after a different mechanic than the one who did my major was doing some routine maintenance underneath the car, and saw that the new Hill bearing was rubbing on the mount bracket. Unbelievable that I wasn't told this after being talked into the Hill bearing from my parts supplier. I just about lost the top end of my motor, as the belt was almost completely worn down.

Always find the root of the noise.

P

 

This conversation really isn't about Hill Bearings necessarily -- it is about a design change made by Ferrari.

Early 355's (1995) used tensioner bearing 158157 which was replaced by bearing 167464. Those two bearings are not identical, and have the dimensional differences noted in above posts. When Ferrari released 167464, it advise (or maybe mandated) that during installation on 158157-equipped cars, a new tensioner bracket kit was needed to solve clearance issues. The bracket kit 70000973 exists and is still sold (http://www.ricambiamerica.com/product_info.php?products_id=262577). This bracket kit is very similar to a customer-ground version, in that it simply gives the bearing room to turn.

(Full disclose, we recently had a customer -- first one ever -- who had clearance issues with a factory 7000973 kit and a Hill Bearing. The pieces did not get installed on the car, and no damage occurred. All those 'in question' pieces are back at Ricambi for evaluation. Prior to that, we have sold about 20 -- i.e. not too many -- of the bracket kits for early cars and not heard of any issues.)

Old 158157 bearings might still exist as old/dead stock on shelves (not mine), but for all reasonable arguments, it is obsolete.

The bottom line is this: if you have a 1995 car and the bearings have never been changed (or not changed in a VERY long time), you cannot simply slap an OEM 167464, or Hill Engineering PT355 onto the car without physical verification of the bearing fit and clear rotation. I *assume* anybody working on these cars has the experience or precision to check these kinds of things during installation, and stop working if/when something seems askew.

The Hill Bearing PT355 is dimensionally identical to 167464, not 158157.