348 Front wheel bearing help

So another track weekend, another weekend with a mechanical issue. First off the Delta Vee suspension what can I saw but WOW followed by another WOW took 3.9 seconds off my best lap from last year running the same tires in nearly the same temp!! But in the third session after getting black flagged for rolling my sleeves up and pulling back on the track the car just didnt feel right. I did two slow laps and then got the checker and on the cool down lap everything went wrong.

Making a right hander all of a sudden the steering wheel ripped left and I started hearing a nice grind from the front. I limped it as best as I can back to the paddock but ended up having to stop short as I started tearing up the wheel on the body. Got out the jacks and lifted the car up and sure as hell I actually had the balls from the bearing laying under the car. Took the wheel off and the retaining nut was laying inside the hub. I ground up the cage of the bearing but am baffled still at how the nut came off.

So needless to say massively lucky when I consider it came apart on the cool down lap as I have lost one before in another car at speed and it was probably the biggest pucker factor of my life.

My question to everyone and the experts is this. I have the 1990 series front hubs with the wheel bearing being the older double ball bearing set instead of the newer one pictured here http://www.ricambiamerica.com/product_info.php?cPath=13_733&products_id=199587&osCsid=68942d2a784321773ac42af319d3a546 So it looks to me that the whole hub is different as well as the spline and backing plate to support the new bearing. The newer bearing I know is better as (I dont remember the technical name of this bearing type) it has better resistance to side to side force than the original setup. Should I rebuild the current setup (Daniel do you have the parts for this or even the part numbers?) or should I upgrade the whole front end to the new setup which I am sure will be costly if it requires purchasing new hubs unless someone has them off a destroyed car and wants to sell them to me.

As always thanks for the help folks.

 

First of all, that sucks balls. Sorry to hear about your misfortune John.

Now as for the bearing, I would just rebuild the current set up. The bearings are usually SKF. I don't know what they are for the newer set up, but I'm guessing they would be the same. Anyway just rebuild what you have.

The reason I say that is because of the "updated" rear axle on the 348's. They have the sealed cv joints, and if thouse go out you have to replace the whol flipping axle.

It actually depends on the design of the old axle. If it is really that bad of a design then maybe you should replace both fronts with the new settup. I would try to find some good used updated ones, cause new is gonna be a fortune.

 

Not to disagree with you Ernie becuase your idea is what I thought of originally(on the rebuild) too but, the new style bearings don't need as much attention if any and you could probably find the parts used(hub etc.) thru GT Car Parts in Phoenix. Although I think I would buy new bearings, anyway just a thought. Oh yea, and you lucked out on when that happened could have been a hugh event in other circumstances. Regards, Vern

 

Yeah I know what ya mean Vern Now that you mentioned it I think that is the way to go.

 

Yep going to call GT Car parts tomorrow and TRuts cause it looks like eBay doesn't have any and I dont know of any for sale by anyone on here. The new style setup is definately nicer but if even used they are pricey (>= 3k for everything) I think I am just going to rebuild what I have for this year and then upgrade over the winter cause the newer ones are much better as Vern pointed out from a maintainence perspective.

All in all I am pretty lucky as it could have been a much bigger event. All I lost in the end is my brembo caliper, a rotor, and then what ever else got ate up in the bearing crapping out. It could have easily have been the full suspension in one of the 80-90mph sweepers so I feel lucky and peeved at the same time.

From the looks of what I saw yesterday piecing it together on the corner of the paddock it looks like there are two saucer units that sort of cover the whole bearing and setup. The outer acts as a dust cover and the inner as the outter race of the bearing. The inner skf part is shredded so thats a replacement part and then I need the cage as well and a few balls that I cant find.

Ernie I think you and I are the most flawed people on the 348 brotherhood. That other Fat man just seems to keep running and running like the energizer bunny. Speaking of him if you see him tell him to PM me as I would like to have him gather some data for me with my GPS unit for the tracks he runs in CA for my trackpedia site.

Vern thanks for the help as always.

 

None of you would happen to know the bearing part number for the front with the old setup would you? When I had my laptop stolen here 2 weeks back when my house was broken into I lost my parts manual and workshop manual. Needless to say its been a crappy start to the summer.

 

See attached pages from 1990 manual
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Hey Ernie, I just notice your consultantdom(is that a word?) cool. Opps.. Sorry for the tangent, Regards, Vern

 

NO KIDDING! How do you think I know so much about these damn cars. I'm telling you I have worked on just about everything you can think of on a 348. My problem is that the idiots that owned the car before me did a piss poor job at maintaining it. It would have been nice to have a perfect car, but on the flip side I wouldn't know as much as I do about the 348, and I wouldn't have been able to pass the help on to others.

As for fatboy, I tell him when I see him next week.

 

Hey, thank Vern. I got it a couple of months ago. Steve from the UK section help me get it, LOL

 

Just a side note on this frt bearing thing. I have a 355C and according to the service records my car had its front bearings replaced at 4300 miles which at that time were all race miles in the series. Food for thought on longivity, I don't know if that was common or not or just my car. Regards, Vern

 

John, you seem to be having all sorts of problems...

Just sell me your 348 and be done with it !

ps: any new pics or vids of your car ?

 

Man these parts are crazy expensive!! The fricking hubs are 1k each used and the old bearing is $550. Bleh...I think I have spent more than a formula one team does this year per lap. Pain in the arse.

 

well, look on the bright side...
you have a buyer for your 348 , just in case selling ever crosses
your mind...

weeeeeeeeee !

 

Take the other side out and source it from a bearing house. These bearings are never made custom. If you really need to just redesign the system. I've kept mine well lubed and never had a problem with many race miles. I also check the car before every session out. Did you tech your car and check your bearings for play before you went out? Could you have missed something in the preteck or did you really have a sudden catastrophic failure. It is the latter that is really scary at the speeds we travel.

 

JJ! I did a little research back when I thought I was going to be replacing my rear bearings. Perhaps this will help:

Pre-1993 348 Outer Rear Wheel Bearings (SKF): new from Applied = $105 each http://www.applied.com (877-279-2799), or $113 from Ferrari of Dallas for bearing part #144807 (SKF # 62209-2RS1 or SKF 62209-2RS2), or $40 each from Gerardi Bearing Co.(Salinas, CA).

Early 348 wheel bearing replacement:
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?p=134547279

Outer rear wheel bearing hub assembly for 1993-1995 348's was Ferrari part #143172 and is now #157900 (new $677 at Ferrari of Atlanta, $594 at Ferrari of Dallas, or used $456 at ferraripartsexchange.com).

Late Ferrari 348 and 355 rear hub bearing assembly pictorial replacement:
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66320&highlight=157900

 

Well took both hubs apart tonight and sure as hell both show only part numbers on the rubber section of the outside of the bearing. They are SKF with the number 441696 M on them and then the number 65 on the other side which I assume to be the bearings size in mm. I haven't had much luck cross referencing here on any site as the only thing google kicks back to me is this page http://www.paramio.com.ar/rodamientos/addprod.asp?productid=4768 which shows what appears to be a cross referenced part from SNR for $175 but I have no clue if its legit.

No Doubt if you know how to work allied's site will you give it a whirl for me? I cant find the SKF numbers you reference let alone the one above after playing around with it now for a while. So any help would be appreciated.

FBB - Yeah I just re-greased these before the track this weekend and then checked the play before lowering the car back down after trailering it down to teh track. Nothing was wrong...the cage just came apart spraying the balls every where and some how that ended up working the nut loose in the 1/2 I drove it on the cool down lap. Royal pain in the butt...but could have been much worse.

 

Here are some pics from the mess. The one I took of the ball guts blown up all over the ABS sensor.
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God. That looks like something that my come out of Carbon McCoy's rear orifice.

 

The front are on the 348. just had to replace 1 of mine as i messed it up when i took it apart !! part number 112799 uk cost £305.30 + 17.50% Tax !!!

I looked at it and it looks very well built but i did think about the maintenance i would strip them down every 12 months and re Grease.

 

Bleh pain in the butt. I don't think anyone makes the part in cross reference besides that one strange link in Spanish I found. Daniel I am going to take one more look at it tonight and see if I can find a matching cage and reassemble it but if not I am going to come looking for this bearing...you wouldn't happen to have it would you?

 

I had all the balls but could not reassemble it to work right, yes i got it back together but it was very tight, i spun the hub in the lathe to see if it would free of and it got hot !!

When i got the new bearing it came with the plastic bush holding the inner race in, some how they are pressed up at the bearing factory but once apart they dont go back !! be Warned.

 

if you are not sure of the proper bearing numbers just pull the other wheel off and look. Someone has to make these bearings

Also, I don't understand how you could have a failure right after servicing the unit. Very strange and very dangerous. I would hope that thinking about it perhaps there is something done wrong in the reinstall that perhaps allowed the nut to walk and then the bearing to loosen and then eat itself. That is not a put down on your mechanic ability we can all make mistakes. You can bet I have made my share. I hate to think we are driving around with cement walls at 100mph+ o a ticking timebomb! This thread concerns me. I have never heard of a front bearing failure at speed. They do not seem to be common and most failure have noise/vibration warnings first. Did you get any of that?

 

I called SKF directly today and gave them the part number off the good bearing and they told me "It was a customer specific housing on the bearing and it was no longer directly available under an SKF part number. Please contact the vendor who originally supplied the bearing." To me either this is their piss of statement OR they did make the bearing specifically for Ferrari and will not sell without them.

Allied has nothing either and does not even know the part number and the tech there could not match it by photograph.

I agree with you FBB I have questioned myself multiple times now on how this happened because it was a pretty big eye opener for me considering my home track has a 150mph banked turn 1 which it would not be good to have this happen at. I have gone back over all my notes (I am anal with writing this crap down so I know what I need to replace when) and I have notes that before loading the car on the trailer in my typical track once over I checked the free play on the bearing and the left side was actually tighter than the right as well as the fact that both nuts had the top "stamped" and had not rotated since I last greased them this spring each also had a minimum of 6 threads at the top of the nut. I rechecked this same stuff after I had a spin in the first session just to make sure nothing happened.

I would love to say it was my stupid mistake but I just cant see how it was. I dont know how the cage went unless the temps just got to high and it cooked off and expanded enough to let the ball out which was immediately mashed by the stub axle.

I have to say this wasn't instant. I got black flagged and upon coming back out of the pits I noticed the car did not track right on the straight but I have had issues with the rims throwing weights off so I just figured that was it as it felt the same. I kicked down the speed to make sure everything was ok and on that same lap I got the checker then boom it all happened.

 

Hey FBB, Your post said what I was wondering also but, didn't want to seem like I was being insulting to inquire any deeper(I'm good at fumbling around words). I have been there on my share of goofy crap too. Anyway I have to commend you on your eloquent way of asking a question that would be interesting for all of us that would want to understand how this could have happened in the first place, since John appears to know what the heck he is doin' with a wrench and just serviced the bearing. John, it would be great if you can post more on this if you find out what happened. Regards,Vern


Edit, John I'm a slower typist than you just read the above post.