heat exchanger questions on 2001 360 Modena | FerrariChat

heat exchanger questions on 2001 360 Modena

Discussion in '360/430' started by gtwhaley, Jul 28, 2018.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

  1. gtwhaley

    gtwhaley Karting

    Jan 10, 2011
    93
    Kentucky & Texas
    Full Name:
    Greg
    Good morning all & happy weekend!

    A little background... I recently picked up a 2001 360 Modena that was involved in an accident on the left front and would like to save it from the salvage yard as it appears to have been kept in above average condition most of it's life. The car has just a little over 22k miles on it. When I got the car trailered home, I did a walk around to survey any potential issues that would prevent me from starting the car. Since the car had collision damage to the left front, the LF radiator was damaged. I removed the damaged radiator and fabricated a loop to seal off the cooling system and allow coolant to circulate. After checking all fluid levels as best as I could, I then got to the coolant tank in the rear center. Of course it was empty because of the broken radiator, but I noticed some residue of something in the empty tank. I filled the system up with water and checked for leaks. None found. I started the car and it appeared to be running exactly as it should. After a couple minutes, I shut it down and checked the coolant tank again and found the light greenish globs floating on the surface. I googled the @#$@# out of it and saw that everyone mentions something similar when the heat exchanger has usually failed. Thinking that it was most likely the problem, I ordered a new HE, oil filter and all required washers for reassembly. I also drained all remaining coolant, gear oil & engine oil. I did not notice any contamination of the gear oil when draining it. I have not removed the mesh filter yet. Over the past few days I have been digging into the repair and finally this morning I was able to remove the heat exchanger.

    After laying the current & new HE side by side, I noticed that the current HE has a manufacturing date of 03/2017 and my new one is 05/2018. I will be receiving the previous owners contact info within the next few days, and I am trying to dig up some service records on the car, but not likely to come up with anything this weekend. I do know from some of the records I've already come up with that the timing belts were changed in September of 2016 and are good until 2019. With that in mind, along with the mfg date of the HE, the HE was swapped out after the timing belts were replaced.

    My questions are:

    What is the likelihood that the current HE would have failed after such a short amount of time?
    Or is it more likely that I was seeing residual gear oil and simply need to swap/flush out the coolant a few more times?
    Or, is there another issue that could be causing this symptom?
    What is the most straightforward way of testing the current HE, as well as the new one before I reassemble anything?
    What other items should I pay attention to before I button things back up? (btw, I went in through the firewall engine access panel to remove the HE)

    Thanks in advance, guys!

    Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
     
  2. gtwhaley

    gtwhaley Karting

    Jan 10, 2011
    93
    Kentucky & Texas
    Full Name:
    Greg
    Also, what would be your thoughts if I remove the thermostat, and temporarily replace the heat exchanger with a piece of PVC pipe, remove the loop/radiator bypass pipe I fabricated, and attach a garden hose into one of those hoses and then continuously flush water through and out the other other hose, without the engine running?
     
  3. 24000rpm

    24000rpm F1 Rookie

    without the engine running, nothing will happen, safe to proceed.
    i dont know the answer to your other quetions, but your gearbox need to be flushed too
     
  4. SoftwareDrone

    SoftwareDrone F1 Veteran
    Sponsor Owner Rossa Subscribed

    Jan 19, 2004
    7,502
    San Jose, California
    Full Name:
    Mike
    Goo is going to bubble up into your coolant overflow tank for a few months. Just fish it out after every drive (after the car has cooled down). I ended up attaching a large allen wrench to a drill, lowering the bent part of the allen wrench down into the tank below the surface of the coolant, then turning the drill on low speed to stir up the fluid in the tank to get it moving around. In this way, you'll catch the larger blobs that you might otherwise miss. And all this was after I had the car professionally flushed, twice. And agree on the gearbox needing to be flushed. I have actually gone through this twice (ruptured heat exchanger). Horrid design.
     
  5. RedNeck

    RedNeck F1 Veteran
    BANNED Silver Subscribed

    Jul 8, 2016
    9,875
    The CSA
    Full Name:
    Me
    Wow, please keep us updated on this. The oil filter won't make a difference (unless you have head gasket issues) as it is the gearbox oil that goes through the exchanger. I just recently replaced my heat exchanger, even though my original one had 55k miles on it and was almost 20 years old, with NO issues other than looking super cruddy. I would bet that it is residual mixed oil/coolant from the original failure and it wasn't properly flushed. The belief around here that as long as you change your coolant every 2 years, your HE will live a happy healthy life. Unless that HE was defective from the factory, I would be willing to be that it is ok. It seems like you would be able to run fluid through both ports of the exchanger (coolant through the tube, gear oil around it) to determine any leaks
     
  6. gtwhaley

    gtwhaley Karting

    Jan 10, 2011
    93
    Kentucky & Texas
    Full Name:
    Greg
    I picked up a section of PVC pipe yesterday and if time & weather permit, I hope to attempt flushing the system over the weekend. Also, I called a Ferrari dealer and asked them how they clean the system after a HE failure. Was told that they usually flush the system 3 times and don't usually disassemble anything.

    When I had drained the gear oil from the transmission, I was not able to notice any contamination at all, which adds to the theory that I am just dealing with leftover contamination from a previous failure. Anyway, still hope to test both the current & new HE before I reassemble everything. Not sure I could put it back together this weekend anyway, as I didn't get a replacement O-ring which is on the back of the water pump and I sure don't want something as simple as that to bite me in the butt later. Whatever I do accomplish this weekend, I will take some photos for reference.

    So assuming that both HE's test out fine, then the decision is... which one do I install back into the car? The brand new one? or one that is a year old? Because I'd like to recoup some money back from one of them.
     
  7. RANDY6005

    RANDY6005 Formula 3
    Silver Subscribed

    Jan 9, 2017
    2,267
    Jacksonville
    Full Name:
    RANDY
    From my experience mine went bad and took it to Ferrari dealer and they flushed it several times, and I stile had to take shop paper tiles and soak up the oil from the coolant tank finale all clean. you are going to have to drive it to to get it hot enough to circulate the oil to the coolant tank and re-flush the coolant every six months until all clean. Maybe that heat xchanger is good and that is the from old bad one ..
     
  8. Zcobra1

    Zcobra1 Formula 3

    Oct 9, 2012
    1,247
    So Cal
    Full Name:
    Bert
    I would reinstall the year old one, monitor the coolant and gear oil closely, and flush the gear oil/coolant one more time in a few hundred miles. Sell the new one to recoup costs....

    I just replaced my HE just as a precaution, no evidence of cross contamination, but there was a lot of gunk in the gear oil side of the cooler, and oil was pretty dirty, did a double oil flush.
    Also the gear oil screen that requires the rear bumper removal, was dirty, and needed cleaning.
     
  9. RedNeck

    RedNeck F1 Veteran
    BANNED Silver Subscribed

    Jul 8, 2016
    9,875
    The CSA
    Full Name:
    Me
    If you can return the new for a full refund, there's no reason to keep it...I would be EXTREMELY surprised if there was anything wrong with the 2017 one.
     
  10. CCRider66

    CCRider66 Formula Junior
    Owner Rossa Subscribed

    Jul 29, 2014
    454
    Sussex, WI
    Full Name:
    Brian
    If you can't get a refund on the new one, I might be interested in helping you recoup some money :)
     

Share This Page