Following on from earlier threads, here are the pics showing how the belts were changed. http://homepage.mac.com/ajm7/belts/
so is it materially cheaper to do the major this way? or just less disruptive? i would think that one benefit of pulling the block would be that you'd have the chance to REALLY go over the engine. not so? interesting documentation - many thanks! doody.
Doody, i think it's both. The belts and an annual service were around £1400 , inclusive of VAT @ 17 1/2 %. The main dealers are £2000 PLUS VAT. So a saving of around 40 %.You really do get the chance to see all of the internals quite clearly and the engineer was able to show me everything that could go wrong. I saw an official Ferrari schedule showing the time allocated for each job,and the belts were given 8 hrs IN CAR. Regards
Fascinating to the max. Scary that official UK Fcar dealers had your engine so out of time. Would the replacement of the water pump be possible if one chose to do the belts in this manner. Thanks for posting for us and adding to the engine out or not controversey J/k..Dave
Check out pic 15. This clearly shows the pump and as you can see, it's VERY accessable. BTW, the official Ferrari guide to replacing pump is 8 hours and IN SITU.
That makes me feel a lot better about buying on in the future. Belt changes are already expensive but throwing in the labor for the engine R&R is just about more then I am willing to do.
One thing I did notice is that the cam covers did not appear to have been removed. How then is it possiable to be 100% sure the timing marks are correctly aligned? Yes you can remove the rear cam cover end caps and line the scribe markes there..was this done? Why is it that the removal of the crank bolt was not showen? I think I know how it was done but my question is how were they able to install the new belts without haveing to pull the crank pully at least 3 inches forward inorder to get the belts in with out twisting and pushing? This job appears to be just strictly a belt change with no cam seals etc replaced. I'm questioning how they were able to time the engine correctly with out a dial gauge for top dead center and without removing the cam covers. Tom
Tom, i'm afraid i'm no engineer but i've put your question to a very good one and got the following answer.If you look at pic 30 , you can clearly see a shot of the score in the head and the correctly aligned timing marks.The timing marks are made at the factory.The covers were not removed for this job. As for the removal of the crank bolt, i'm respecting Karl's wishes by not revealing how this is done.He is happy to speak to anyone about this matter.I can confirm that the engine is NOT moved 3 inches and there's minimal disruption when the belt is removed. For the record, the car in the pics is NOT mine, but a friends.However, i can confirm the procedure is the same and mine was done on Monday.
Corectomundo: My F355 had 5 of 8 cam seals leaking at the time of my major. If you spend time at the tracks, expect to change these each major. With respect to timing: yes you can time the engine using the marks, however, using a dial indicator (as shown in the engine buildup section of the shop manual) is several degrees more accurate than the timing marks. These cars just now getting a major service are sitting on water hoses that are approaching 10 years old. When we did my major this winter, we also found a host of water hoses (the littel ones that are impossible to reach with out removing the air bos (helmholtz resonator) from the intake system) that were toast.
I did not realize there was a second page of pic's!! I just had a look and yes I see the mark you are talking about. Unfortunatly that mark is a rough referenace mark just to see it the timing marks are roughly aligned without haveing to pull the cam covers. That mark is not part of the cylinder head. It is actually scribed on the camseal housing which is a removable component. If you have a look at the pic's you posted, look at the ones showing the cam pullies without the belts installed. Undernieth each pully you see 2 10mm nuts. This is what holds that housing in place. That housing is not always 100% in place. somtimes it's a little one way or the other, depending on how thick or old the o-ring behind it is. I'm not knocking the job and obviously it can be done in the car. But like I have said in the previous post the timing on your car I belive is not set correclty. Maybe not enough out of spec to be really noticable but most definatly not on spec. If I were to do a the job in the car I would have pulled the cam covers anyway like I always do. Would not have taken anymore then an extra 3 hours to do so. I would be interesting just to have them pull the covers and line everything up correctly with a dial indicator, just to see how close they are. You may never know but i have a funny feeling there are some 355's out there that are one pinch away from major disaster.
