308 HELP

i bet you broke an alternator belt, go check. same belt runs the water pump, explaining why you overheated. Easy fix as long as you didnt drastically overheat the engine which is doesnt sould like you did.

Geno

 

My water pump seized up and the belt just squealed & melted thru.I stopped immediately the gen light came on,got it towed home, new pump and belt ,all fixed. You should still be able to start it though unless the battery is down or-- I won't even think what could be making it slow to turn over after overheating. Good Luck hope you're on the road again soon and cheaply. K

 

both

as Geno suspects...most probably the waterpump/alt belt broke
your `80s 308-2V has the 2-belt system (1 for wp/alt, 1 for ac)
see the following graphic :
.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Mine did the exact thing. The alternator seized and the alternator-water pump belt broke.

 

My WP/ALT belt popped off just as I was rolling into a gas station - LoL.

 

I had the same thing happen to me too! My belt actually melted into the pulley and we had to remove and clean the pulley. It happens because the alt bearing seized up and literally cooked the belt onto the pulley. It is a common problem and quite messy!

 

It is very possible that nothing is wrong with your wp or alt. If you have a single wp/alt belt - THAT is the problem.

Ferrari had problems with one belt on these cars. The would twist over squeal and tear off here and there whenever they felt like it. Mine did it three times between 97 and about 04.

In Dec 1983 Ferrari released a tech bulletin to dealers addressing this issue. It said that any car having this problem should be updated with a two belt set up. A "kit" was provided and was installed as needed back in the day.

Not all cars do this and it is difficult for me to believe that THIS isn't the real source of wp issues as well. I believe that the extra tension folks put on these single belts does them in prematurely.

I am not a mechanic but I did grow up turning wrenches. That plus the fact that I have stood on the side of the road 3 times with a broken belt and saw it happen once in my driveway on start up in Jan 05 leads me to conclude with 110% certainty that it is a dumb**** design with no place on the side of my 308 engine and dealing with this design is the cause of the failures itself of both the belts and the pump. In 05 I sourced a kit thru Rutlands and installed it. It took about 3 months to find all the parts but it was worth the wait;

I bought my car in 1997. 3 1/2 belt failures in 25,000 miles during the first 7 years. New two belt set up, 7 more years another 25,000 miles and ZERO failures. As far as I am concerned it's a problem found and solved, case closed. Two belts are the way to go if you want to be free of worries.

I know a lot of people don't deal with this as much as I have and may suggest that "it's just my car". Bull****. If that were true, the factory would have never bothered "fixing" it with an update available beginning in 1983 OR redesigning the engine with two belts - exactly as they did later in production. Also, I have just rolled 109,000 miles on my car - show me hands of everyone that uses their 308 as much as I do. I have much more road time to discover these issues than most people. 15 years and 50,000 for me total so far.

But anyway...

 

Doc is speaking truth here. Had similar issue on my 82. Had the fix done back then just in time to sell it. I sure hope the purchaser enjoyed all the stuff I did to get it sorted. Knock on wood just rolled 97,000+ on a very hot drive to Baltimore, forgot I now have A/C that works. Water temp with Ferraripilot's radiator never reached halfway. Mounted the micro-auto radiator air bleed. Took five minutes prior to drive to install. and really works.

 

Same thing happened to mine about a month ago.

Shop owner said it threw the alternator belt, but the engine, alt, and waterpump are OK.

I'll find out more when I talk to him again on Monday.

 

That WP/ALT belt is so thin I am amazed it lasts as long as it does.

 

This is really the only reason I steer people to an 85 when they ask about buying a 308. I always say to bring a flashlight to look and count the belts if the car is an 84 because some have them from the factory and even more including earlier models have been updated. All else being equal, why pick the car with one?

Not me. I am done with that headache.

 

For future reference, I beg those in this situation to stop sooner and get the tow earlier. This is old technology now, things can break and if pushed too far or too long the results have the potential of being very sad.

I think the check engine light has lulled a lot of people into thinking the warning lights are optional.

If the belt hasn't actually snapped yet and the alternator is seized it could make it very hard for the engine to turn over as it would have to overcome the seized alternator.

 

Tommy, sorry to hear, I had no idea you had this much trouble with your 308...... Boy, I'm glad mine is an 85'.

 

Hi, Robert. What kind of setup did you install there? Do you have any part numbers/photos that you might send me?

 

Whew!

Mine gave out less than a mile from home and I was able to get it off the road right away, let it cool down, and limp home with another couple of stops made along the way.

I let it cool down for several hours in the garage, then turned it over. Engine started and ran fine, as it did when the flatbed came the next day.

 

It really isn't that big of a deal. Things like this are going to happen no matter what we drive. Frankly it has given me FAR less trouble - including the belt thing - than my VW Touareg has. When a belt breaks on our 308's, We can tow it to, literally, a service station and get it fixed by a part time guy with a lift.

I lost a key out of town to the Touareg and couldn't find my spare. It was sitting in the parking deck at the airport. VW couldn't make a key without linking the car to a satellite to download the codes off site. The parking deck was blocking that signal. Towing it out was an issue because without a key you cannot put it into neutral (don't get me started about that) so we had to find a company that had dollies because you shouldn't drag it, which we would have had to do to get it out of the parking spot to load it on a truck. Not everyone has them on the truck. Ask me how I know. THEN there is a clearance issue. guess the height of a 4WD SUV on the back of a car carrier and then guess the height of a parking deck roof. See where all this is going?

I'll take a broken accessory belt on a 308 anytime and twice on sunday over that again.

 

What a *****! Sorry to hear about it. Do you still have the Touareg?

 

I am sick in bed but as soon as I can stand and walk I will post some pics and part numbers. Works so weell that I am thinking of using one on the thermostat housing. So simple it was surprising. Here is the link, I ordered both but ended up using the little one. Also, should it fail it fails in the air bleed mode so it won't ever blow out water.

http://www.discountedheating.co.uk/shop/acatalog/Aladdin_Auto_Air_Vent_Hygroseal_Automatic_Radiator_Bleeder.html

 

I do but it isn't a problem unique to VW, it's pretty much anything with a $250 key and computers in it, which I bet is 100% of the new cars on the road today, so changing cars really won't help me. I have a mechanic friend that drives a 92 VW Corrado he bought new. He will not sell it to me because he doesn't want to deal with all the computer electronics and the unique problems that modern cars have - and he WORKS on them for a living. What does that tell you?

 

Thank you, Robert. Just placed an order. This will be fantastic, doing without any additional joints, tubing, etc.

 

What is kind of cool is when I first started the car to warm it up and bled the air for the first time I could smell the coolant smell but not a drop of coolant as the sytem came up to operating temp. In other words you cold smell the air that was bleeding out. The temps never go above half way on the gauge now. These little buggers really work. I did add an o-ring to help seal it.

 

If I remember correctly, we were all thinking that you probably got the last kit in existence at the time.

Thankfully, my car -- which is the same as your car -- has never broken that belt in 20+ years of driving it... and I think it's only been changed out twice for normal maintenance during those two decades.

 

...the belts are right there infront of you to see easily.

Checking condition is easy and periodic replacement of them is cheap insurance.

Please correct me if I am mistaken, didn't the factory tool kit include a belt anyway?

I have one in my trunk because finding one on the road might not be easy on a sunday night at AutoZone, Kragen...fill in the blank.

Having it in the trunk for 5 years and not needing it is money well spent.

mi dos centavos