360 Overheating Issue - Heat Exchanger or something else?

Don’t drive it. While the heat exchanger could be the issue, the recent coolant change suggests it’s more likely associated with the change. For example, not bleeding the system properly, or leaving a fitting loose. The engine and heads are aluminum, so are sensitive to overheating. Your topping up with coolant won’t solve the problem if there is trapped air. Flatbed it and have it checked out. Sorry to spoil your new ownership experience, but driving it is not a chance I would take.


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Wow! down right brown looking in there for new coolant. You can send a sample of the coolant to blackstone and they will tell you if oil is in it, If yes then you got more parts to replace. If you drove the car fine for several hours how can a car just get hot from putting it on the car hauler unless it was immediately just after your drive?

 

Add coolant and see if oil is floating in the coolant. Those droplets look like oil but maybe not?

 

The guys that have experienced an exchanger failure will know what to look for and will respond as soon as they log in.

 

I have a stick, not F1, but what you need to check for cross contamination is not the F1 fluid that operates the shifting hydraulics, but the transaxle fluid.


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Don't drive it and don't add coolant. The only thing at this point that should be done is to check the oil in the transaxle. Tow it to an experienced Ferrari mechanic. Any other fooling around may cost you a transaxle and that is a $20 some odd thousand mistake.

 

The F1 system is completely separate from the gearbox. You almost certainly have a gearbox full of coolant and that is no joke. It is a huge mess getting that all cleaned out. Hopefully the gearbox survives.

 

It sounds like you may have a heat exchanger failure. I just went through this exact issue on my 01’ 360. You will not find traces of coolant in the F1 fluid tank. The coolant traces will be found when you drain the gearbox oil. Those brown oil looking deposits in the coolant tank are similar to what mine had. If you catch it soon enough, you can probably get away with flushing the coolant system and gearbox just a few times each after replacing the heat exchanger. In my case I flushed the gearbox 10 times and the coolant system between 17-20 times before all contaminants were gone. I did the entire heat exchanger replacement and flushing process myself and would be happy to offer advice. This is also a good time to do intake gaskets while the manifold is off to access the heat exchanger. Best of luck to you, Aeron.


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Humm. So empty coolant tank with residue is tell tale enough and no need to make the oil blobs "float". Guess the hot coolant forced itself down into the gearbox through holes in the heat exchanger? My 2002 coolant tank is still clear but it looks like it is just a matter of time before the heat exchanger goes? I have changed my coolant every other year since 2012 but is the time bomb still ticking? Is replacing the heat exchanger a good idea to get ahead of the potential problem?

 

Coolant is under pressure, so yes, it forces its way into the transaxle if the heat exchanger is compromised.
As for doing it ahead of an actual problem, advice is all over the place. If you annually change your fluids, you will most likely catch a problem before there is much if any damage. Annually renewing coolant also ensures your corrosion inhibitors are always good. The cause of failure is most likely due to corrosion. But there have been failures without corrosion.
After a few buddies’ 360s suffered heat exchanger failures, I swapped mine, only to find after it was out of the car that my annual fluid changes looked like it kept my exchanger in good condition. Oh well.


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If you've only owned the car for 5 hours, there's a pretty good chance the problem existed before you got it and you've been screwed. Hopefully the previous owner didn't let this go for too long.
Where are you located?

 

Fortunately, on my car the transaxle wasn’t damaged at all. Make sure your mechanic pulls the metal screen filter in the bottom rear of the transaxle. If that screen is free of metal shavings, you are probably in good shape. On mine it was a much longer process to clean up the cooling system than the gearbox. I pulled my radiators and flushed the system with distilled water multiple time before putting everything back together. Once it was back together I would drive it for about 10 miles at a time, then flush it again. In the case of the transaxle, I flushed it on the same 10 mile intervals. Send me a PM for my phone number if you would like any more detailed information.


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It definitely sounds like a heat exchanger. Unfortunately it isn't exactly a rare issue. If you check the dipstick on the transaxle I would imagine it would be quite overfilled with sludge. It is a migraine to clean.

 

Yep, stuff happens. That is why some ar reluctant to allow test drives until things are pretty far along. Anyway, it can be cleaned up and it sill work out well. Fix it, drive it, have fun.

 

Good idea start flushing gear box with automatic transition fluid and run threw the gears from the lift drain it and keep flushing and looks clean. Put new gear oil drive 100 miles or so drain gear oil again replace new again. I put 50 miles and drain gear oil for second time just starting to look clean. Filled again ATF again now letting it set for a while drain and replace new gear oil sounds like allot. better safe than sorry IMHO

 

Also tell your mechanic to go through the engine bay to replace the exchanger, might save some time and money.

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