F360 - broken thrust bearing guide bracket

I have had my 2000 model F360 Modena for just one one year. The car had been supposedly well maintained and has now covered 35,000 kilometres (8,000 by me in the last year).

A few days ago, I was driving in traffic and was stationary. The clutch pedal had developed a squeak in the last few days and sounded like it needed a drop of oil on the pedal pivot. As I waited for the traffic to move off, I operated the clutch pedal a few times (to scare the squeak away I guess). I then heard a metallic grating noise from the rear of the car and lost all drive. The clutch pedal pressure had reduced markedly. I pushed the car to the side of the road and called for a tow truck.

While waiting, I checked the clutch/brake hydraulic fluid and all was ok. The car was transported to the local Ferrari dealership workshop and the gearbox was removed next day.

Apparently, the thrust bearing anti-rotation pin guide bracket was broken in a number of pieces. This had allowed the thrust bearing to rotate on its shaft and caused the pressure plate to lock in the no drive position.

While the gearbox is off the car, a new pressure plate, clutch plate, 6-bolt ring gear, spigot bearing, thrust bearing, anti-rotation guide bracket and gearbox mounting bush will be fitted. Quite a few dollars!!!!!!!

So my question to all of you is - can you think of any reason why this guide bracket should have broken? I have been thinking maybe the thrust bearing seized up and the rotation forces of the bearing on the guide bracket were just too great and caused it to fracture. Or maybe the clutch pedal travel was too great and caused too much clutch fluid to be pumped into the thrust bearing/slave sylinder and caused it to the exceed the normal travel of the thrust bearing in the guide bracket.

Any ideas would be much appreciated as I don't want this to happen again.

Many thanks....

 

Thats what I thought straight away also.

The squeak was probably the t/o bearing getting noisey before it seized.

Have they removed the parts yet and inspected?? You will soon see if the t/o bearing has seized up mate. The pressure plate should be all ****ed up also.

Any pics would be nice to see too.

 

Dealing with the same on a 99 yesterday.

The lock up is likely the springs and spring seats that fall out and wedge between the flywheel and bellhousing once the TOB rotates on the yoke.

The TOB on our subject is still very smooth which leads me to believe using plastic as an anti-rotation stop for the TOB, in a super high heat area such as this was a poorly thought out design. Monday I will be studying this more closely as this one dodged the bullet and just scared up the aluminum pressure plate and bellhousing. Had it happened at high RPM the steel spring seats could easily have been shot through the bellhousing or the side of the oil tank casting.

My thought is to eliminate the plastic part (201282) and upgrade using the pin bolts (205396) from a F1 TOB. I will have both parts in hand Monday AM so I can verify they both allow the same travel distance of the TOB. This is the first example I have seen but I suspect others have dealt with it where year around driving and higher ambiant heat is present.
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Thanks for Dave.