355 F355 cambelt tensioner bearing premature failure

Too me that you continues to drive the car for 5 years says it all.

 

is this the face you're making?

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What? What does it say to you?

 

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the general rule is don't use the OEM ones use the Hill ones, as you did.

You hear a noise you stop and figure it out you don't keep driving with the noise. In your case 6 years. I suspect they were not replaces you were just charged for it. Your lucky you did not have an engine failure.

 

Yea what ever Now try and answer the question.

 

Using this date code chart. Your bearings was manufactured 23rd day of 2010 if based on (W23G) engraved on your bearing. SKF bearing date codes suck, so this may still be an unreliable chart. The (W) in the front isn’t mentioned, can only assume it’s a filler for low numbered days. It would make better sense if it was “023G”.

 

Are You serious? Didn't Eric already answer it? If you hear a noise from the engine you shut it off and find out what it is. Doesn't matter if it's a Ferrari or a lawn mower. Anything else is asking for trouble. That the op got way with driving 5 years, 5000km doesn't justify doing it. It shows extremely poor judgement.

 

Thank you

 

Just a thought you've been a member since 2019 at some point you could have had a post and said I've got this strange noise at the front of my engine and the ideas what it could be? Pretty sure you would have got that answer. It's not actually that hard to pull the motor yourself by the way I know some people don't want to do it and that's fine. Fortunately you didn't have an engine failure so all is well that ends well there.

And I don't believe for a second that shop replaced them.

Any event glad to hear it's resolved. And yes those bearings large number of them including on 348s were really crappy quality. Now go enjoy it!

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Hi all,
correct me if I am wrong about the "hydraulic tensioner" (not about the bearing):

- correct technical designation us: tensioner with mechanical spring and hydraulic damping
- measuring the force is useless (as long you want to judge the damping)

Regarding Serviceability or the necessity of it:
- how severe would be the effect when loosing all the damping? (assuming the mecanical spring is intact)
(this is not a religious or economical question)

 

The internet keyboard warriors would destroy anyone who dares answer that. The only acceptable answer is to replace both the bearings and tensioner units when the belt change is performed, especially when our cars are as old as they are. Well advised to tack the pulley fences also. See you in 5 years.

 

Before you make a blanket recommendation I would suggest you read this post and the associated thread https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/posts/148152998/

 

Wow driving with that noise for 5 years would have made me “nuts” glad to hear you got it straightened out and as far as the bearing I have to say yes the seal letting the grease out is poor quality but the fact that the bearing lasted all that time with out grease has to say something— I would not want to run my car this way but knowing the bearing can handle working under those conditions may have saved your engine



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Tacking the pulley fences doesn’t seem to be all it’s cracked up to be Andy based on a recent thread by @Ferrarium

 

Typically, the belt should not ride on the fence. As noted, many tensioner bearings can indeed fail, thus pushing a belt onto the fence. How can you be sure your fence is ok at this age? I know from years of supercharger belt experience alignment is absolute priority. Any bearing that has failed, or indeed close to fail has the potential to push the belt fence off.

 

Additionally, the it would seem the Ferrari factory welded these in engines built after 97' can anyone confirm this is the case?

 

Everyone has different risk tolerance, and yours could be considered high based on the potential costs involved if failure had occurred. But do know that a lot of people who own these cars are very picky and want every issue resolved immediately, and myself included would not want to take a chance on having an engine failure due to a tensioner bearing. Also, you should know that the experience that you had could be considered rare (having a "new" bearing fail) and lasting for 5 years. Count your lucky stars.

 

Good you caught it.

I had a 3 year old, 9k miles Hill Engineering bearing out of tolerance so it happens to all of them!

 

Thats right, they should never be "welded" "tacked", they will fail.
Use the right pulley.

 

Funny thing is that if you look at the part pictured on Ricambi it looks nicely TIG welded at several points. If you look at the same part on Maranello Classics it looks like a tack weld at two points, but at least it looks like the welding was done before plating. Lastly, if you look at the new parts the Eric actually got recently (from Ricambi?), there doesn't appear to be any welding of the fence.

Anyway, from a engineering point of view, the fence will have circumferential vibrational modes. When tacked at two or more points the two things happen. The modal structure will change and stress will be contracted at the weld. And if the weld is not heat treated to mitigate changes int he grain structure of the metal at the weld point this can all lead to failure at the weld point as seen in Eric's case.