The Cambelt has already been done

From: https://twitter.com/italiancarnut

"If you buy a Ferrari and the previous owner says the cambelt has already been done, ignore them and do it again"

So if I were to sell My 348 this year and state that the belt was replaced last May, prospective owners should ignore Me and have the belt replaced?

When I bought the car last May, The Ferrari Centre in Kent replaced the cambelt (along with the waterpump and belt tensioners at My request), and I have the invoice to prove it (and they keep records of the work carried out also so the work is traceable), so there should be no need to change the belt for at least another couple of years.

The first thing you should do is check out the evidence to prove that the cambelt has been done rather than just replacing the belt regardless.

If the belt was replaced by the owner with no proof it has been done or when (or you simply don't trust them!), then yes, I'd would have the belt changed for piece of mind.

If, as was the case with My car, the belt was replaced by a garage/dealership though, it shouldn't be too hard to find out when the belt was last replaced and if it requires changing anytime soon. If the belt was changed in the the previous year or so and had supporting evidence to prove it, why replace the belt regardless?

(Of course if the supporting evidence from a garage/dealership of a belt change cannot be found for any reason then, again yes, change the belt just in case for piece of mind).


I hope that any damage caused to your car is minimal and it'll all be sorted and back on the road soon!

 

Italian car nut welcome to fchat! I think your advice is good! But Phil I understand your point too. I have owned 6 Ferraris and was intimately involved with a 7th for a best friend who recently bought one of the best 348's in the country the former Bushmobile that was lovingly maintained by CopterJohn. We are all friend here. When I found that car was for sale I nearly forced my friend to buy the car and drove 12 hrs to rush there buy it and trailer it back.

Despite the known history of this fine 348 the first think I did was drop the motor and change the cambelt. I do this with any Ferrari purchase despite what the records say. After 30+ years working on Ferraris am I paranoid? Well...yes and a little anal too. But my labor is free and the belt a 100 bucks so "in my case" it is stupid not to do the work.

So back to Phil's point what if the belt change was $30000? You would not buy the car. What if the belt change was free? You would race down to the mechanic. What if the belt change is 5000? Now you have to think about it. So here are some things to think about:

1- you can put a new belt on a ferrari pick up a rock and shred your new belt = valvetrain death

2- does your mechanic own a steagar tensiometer? does you mechanic have HZ data to set the belt tension? Fact is in 30 years I have seen a steager once. I haven't even found them in the few FNA shops I have visited back in the 80's when sonic methods did not exist. Fact the HZ data in the WSM is faulty and some real pros have empirically come up with their own data tested live on their own clients. The more modern cars WSM HZ data is now considered reliable. If your mechanic lacks the steager or sonic data do you trust his seat of the pants experience to set belt tension? Could the new belt being placed actually be worse than the old one taken off?

3- You can get clues as to belt age by reading the numbers on the belt. In the picture of my red 550 you see the white number on the driver's head start with 14. I just started my major a couple of months ago. That's manufacturer's yr week data coded into the belt. 14 means 2014. Ideally you want the freshest belt you can get but in reality DAYCO the oem manufacturer of the belt (IIRC) says new old stock can sit for 8 years before install according to Plugzit

4-You will also notice this Yellow branding is the "Ferrari" belt from Ferrari. Rumor has it that Ferrari cherry picks its belts from the centermost part of the drum which are the "best" belts. True or false I don't know. I do know that Daniel at Ricambi is one of our most trusted Fchat sources. He takes great pains to not only supply genuine Ferrari belts but Ferrari belts that are freshly dated. The belts you see in the picture where just made a few months before my major. Ricambi is as picky about the parts they supply as we are about our Ferraris.

5-You will also note the yellow banding says DAYCO. Dayco is the oem maker of the belts. So you can buy the belts cheaper if you buy the blue banded dayco generic belts. Are they the same belt? Technically yes. Why did I buy the Ferrari belts form Ricambi? Well if they might be better for a bit more money I'll go with that. My labor is free. What's an extra few bucks? And if Daniel is going to bust his rear to provide us with the "best" parts the price point is reasonable enough for me to buy the Ferrari belt.

6-My silver 550 has gone to a new home. There is still plenty of life on the belts I used the blue belts because I did not learn of the yellow ones until a couple of years ago. The new owner is multiple Ferrari owner. In our discussions I recommended he change the belts when convenient just because of time and he is a diy'er too. So his labor is free. Start fresh is always a good idea regardless of who did the work before. But look at this blue belt. You can just see the blue writing clearly on the belt. This tells you there is low miles on this belt but no idea of time on the belt. But this can give a buyer an idea as to belt integrity.
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^^^ Thanks for writing that up! ^^^

My car is at the shop getting ready for the engine pull next week.

Valuable data here.

 

7- so here is a 2010 Ferrari belt with good miles where the owner did not drive the car like a garage queen.

8-Here is a belt with higher miles and age from 2004. It's branding is nearly invisible. It was on the car maybe 7 years plus. You can't tell how good belts are by looking or feeling them.

I think the best clues are feeling for tension while on the car, looking for wear of the branding, what is the date code on the belt, knowing dayco or Ferrari, what is in the service record. With that data potential owners can gauge their own level of risk. Hope that helps someone.
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Did something seize causing the belt failure? If that's the case it may have truly been a new belt with say old tensioners. "Cam belt has already been done" does not equal major.

 

Very true amatt. Could be waterpump too for that matter with 348s. Since jordan has retired we still do not have a source of rebuilt pumps with jordans reputation to deliver. The braintrust needs to work on that.

 

Question to FBB: somewhere along the line I was given the impression that if one did not have a tensiometer, after putting the belt on, one gently turned the crank while watching the port side "floating" tensioner and when it was at maximum travel towards the center of the engine, tighten the tensioner bolts. Correct, or hooey? My engine has been ticking happily along for several years having been done that way, but then again I stupidly installed those can belt followers a$$-backwards, so what do I know?

 

This is very interesting because how many posts have been made here in the past two years that the belt "never breaks", it's the bearings in the tensioner and idler that go bad with time. When I bought my 348 nearly two years ago the PO told me the belt had not been done in many years (only about 3K miles, car had 17K on it) but a respected shop said they had looked at it recently during an oil change and it looked fine. Needless to say I bought the car factoring in the cost of a proper major and had it completed shortly after purchase. The data on my old belt was worn beyond what FBB showed above but I was able to determine the year of mfg. was '01, a long time for a belt. The picture of the engine in the post looks like it has been a long time since it was opened, just look at the grung on the bearings on the idler. Good case for having timely maintenance.

 

Hi Paul,

I do not know the answer to your question. The spring is just to tension the belt as you work...sort of like a 3rd hand. It was not ment to be the right tension as far as I know and what I have been told by FNA pros of the past. It might be too little or too much. I learned from former FNA mechanics with gray hair back around 1980 to do it by feel. I seem to do it often enough to not loose that "feel". Of course my way is all wrong with no data. But it works for me like an old world artisan. I have never had a failure and any mistakes are my own anyway since I do not do this for anyone else for money. I always say that I will gather sonic data and form my own database one day for cars without WSM sonic data which is about any v12 before the 575 and any v8 before the 430. Some question the WSM data for the 360 so I exclude that data.

I don't think you have to worry unless you are a gorilla. Too tight leads to bearing wear on some cars and stories of belt shredding. Someone got me paranoid about that 5 years ago and I routinely tool the covers off a V12 to check every few drives. The belts were perfect my way worked fine. Feel any old belt and they are always slack on the long side. These belts stretch. They are never that way new even if an idiot does the major. That leads me to believe there is a wide range of what is acceptable. What is optimum is up for debate. Perhaps that's why pros have been very secretive about releasing this information to guys like us. Its just a car not rocket science we can figure out anything if we put our minds to it. We got guys on fchat who are "real" rocket scientists.

 

I wouldn't get butt hurt if someone bought my car and threw in their own cam belts. Why not way to many liars and cheats in the world no one can be trusted without earning that trust!

 

No records of any time belt replacement?

 

I hope My response didn't come across the wrong way (I have been known to rub a few people up the wrong way on Fchat every now and again [ I'm a nice guy in person - honestly! ]

I was quite surprised to see that the belt has snapped on ItalianCarNut's car and My first thought was: "If that belt has just snapped without a failure elsewhere, not being set up correctly or extreme old age then that's going to raise a few eyebrows round here!"

Reading ItalianCarNut's latest post has highlighted exactly what I was trying to say though - It's all about the evidence to prove that the belt has been changed.

Essentially, I think we're both saying the same thing: If a seller tells you it has been done then get them to prove it! - as ItalianCarNut has shown and stated: Don't just take their word for it!

Ask to see the bills for the parts used, ask to see an invoice if they had it done by a garage/dealership and if need be, contact the garage/dealership to see if they have any records of the work ever being carried out.

If they claim that they did it themselves then ask them about how they did it (if they're genuine enthusiasts/home mechanics then they'll most likely enjoy telling you the story! [think along the lines of ernie on here! ] ). You might not be able to tell if they're blagging it about what they did but it's easy enough to find out the proper method to use and you don't have to buy the car on the spot.

If the evidence appears to prove beyond doubt that the work has been carried out, and carried out correctly, then all should be well (NOTE: should be!. It still cannot be guaranteed that someone has not made an error somewhere! ).

If the evidence is not there or gives any cause for concern then either use it as a bargaining tool to help reduce the price of the car and then get the belt changed ASAP for piece of mind, or walk away from the car if it just doesn't feel right to you!

Basically, if in doubt then yes, I agree, replace the belt (It was for this very reason that I had the waterpump and belt tensioners replaced with uprated items. The Ferrari Centre inspected the old parts and said that they look to be in good order but weren't sure how old they were as they hadn't been through the [big box] of service bills/information that came with the car yet, so I said that whilst the engine was out for the cambelt change, replace them for My piece of mind [it only cost Me the price of the parts as part of the deal to buy the car] ).



ItalianCarNut: I feel for you fella! - You're paying the price for someone else's f:censored:k up!

The possibilities appear to be:

1) The seller was an unscrupulous s:censored:t who lied to you about having the cambelt changed.

2) The seller was innocent of any knowledge of the belt not being changed and had been conned by someone else who did work on the engine and claimed to have changed belt but never did.

3) The belt was replaced but was not set up correctly causing wear on the belt resulting in it snapping.

None of which makes the situation any better for you.

When I bought My 348 I spoke to the owner of The Ferrari Centre about the cambelt on the 348 and he told Me that in all his years he hadn't seen a belt failure that hadn't been caused by a water-pump or tensioner failure or some other outside influence. The belts themselves, he said, are incredibly durable.

He told Me that the cambelt change schedule is every 3 years/36,000 miles but in his opinion the belt does not really require changing that often. He said it's great if they get changed for piece of mind every 3 years but he personally would have no worries about a 348 with a belt that had not been changed for 5 or even 6 years.

He tells buyers of 355's on the other hand to replace the cambelts every 3 years religiously as they're at far more risk of failure (again due to outside influences on the belt rather than an inherent weakness in the belt itself).


I seriously hope any damage caused is minimal and you're back enjoying the car very soon!

All the best!

 

That belt is indeed "done". A sorry sight.
For sure that was not recently replaced looking at the dust on the tensioners and fixings.

 

Pretty unfortunate, I've never seen a belt fail quite like that, even 20 years old.

Definitely not from this century.

 

That's how I've done it.

Anyone that has ever had to compress the spring on a 348 tensioner knows it take a lot of force to compress the spring all the way down. I literally have to set the housing on the ground so I can use my body weight to push the tension shaft all the way in the housing before locking it down. As far as I'm concerned on my 348, again MY 348, the tensioner spring puts plenty of pressure on the cam belt.

 

Sorry to see that broken belt. I would definitely investigate the causal factor (aka...don't just assume it was an "old" belt). Let's be honest...on your honda, ford, or toyota--the car you drive every day, that gets all the use...how many times do you see a belt fail? Just because it's on a Ferrari doesn't make it fail at a more rapid rate (assuming non racing/track/abuse).

Either way make sure you carefully look at the wear on the belt and check your tensioner. And just like Ernie said...tensioning the belt is not that cosmic....I would argue that we have over complicated or at least over thought this issue.

Again, sorry to see your bad luck! You never want to hear of that.