In the midst of a major service on my 348 spider, a couple of questions. Service manual indicates turn the crank to the right, I take that to be in a clockwise direction facing the crank/ belts. Correct? On my 2 valve 308 the crank pulley had timing marks for reference. What do you reference of the 348 crank for timing? When I removed the belt covers, there were 2 belt guide shoes located in front of the pulleys on both sides. The shoes were positioned such that the contact area was away from the mounting hole and pulley on both sides. The parts manual shows the shoes with the contact section toward the pulley. What is the correct mounting direction? The same for both sides? Recommended tool to remove the shims? I purchased the brass shim tool from T.Rutlands for my 2 valve. Does not appear suitable for a 4 valve. Thanks for the help.
Yes, you do crank it clock wise if you are facing the front of the engine. That is the direction that the engine turns when it is on. Also, the engine needs to turn clock wise to keep the tention on the timing chain. You will see the timing marks on the cam and the cam caps. They are at the front of the cam, right behind the cogged cam pully. There are also marks on the back of the cam pully, and you can see them through the little vertical holes on the back of the top caps of the cam covers. But those only give you a general idea as to were the cam actually it positioned. If you are going to replace the oil seals and O-rings, don't worry about the tool for the valve shims, because you will have to take the cams off in order to change the oil seals. Once you have the cams off the shims are sitting inside cups that just slide off. It is easy to take the cups out, you can do it with two fingers. But before you take the cams off make sure the you have checked all your valve clearances, and then double check them. As for the guide shoes, are you talking about the ones that are on the top of the belt? If you are they get attached to the cam belt cover. The bolt that attaches the front belt cover to the back belt cover, runs through the hole in the shoe and holds it in place. I would put them on in the direction shown in the manual. They should be riding on the top of the belt, just above the intake cam.
I'm sort of laughing at myself here........ When I saw the title of this post, I thought it would be another "when/if I should change the belts" and/or "price of major service", ie the typical questions. However, after reading this, it appears it is FAR beyond my knowledge and I can't help you at all............ Good luck though........
Thanks ernie, now that I have the valve covers off, it is clear the cams should be removed after all the valve clearances are established. Much easier than when I sat on my 308 motor to access the front bank. Now that is a tight fit! Regarding the belt shoes. Appear the cam cover bolt holds in place,as you point out. I do not see how the shoe is adjusted in place. Locates wherever the bolt fastens them. I am a long way from putting them in place anyway. Thanks for the help.
Bring it up to the timing marks on the camshaft, which will/should be on no. 1 cylinder. Remove the spark plug from no. 1 and put a TDC stop in to degree the crank in at TDC for no 1. You may see a small hole at the toothed wheel for the ref and tdc sensor. This will also be in conjunction with the gap at the TDC sensor around 8:30 position. It lines up right with no 1 on tdc straight up and down in line with the cam drive sprocket. But I verify with the tdc stop. If you want to be 100%, install a degree wheel onto the crank dampner, setting 0 degrees straight up vertically and align with the case. You can use a piece of welding wire as a pointer and bolt on to point to no.1. This is certainly the only way to time if you want to adjust "retard, or advance" the cams different from factory specications. The firing order is 1,5,3,7,4,8,2,6....every 90 degree So, 1 & 4 are on the same mark as is 5 and 8 as is 3 and 2 as 7 and 6. Make sure you are on no 1. to start off with. If the timing marks on the cams don't line up with no. 1 at TDC, you need to correct that. You should be able to put them exactly on their marks at TDC. Also make sure you replace the o-rings behind the washers of the camshaft bolts. You should ABSOLUTELY, put those as they are shown in the parts manual. The foot faces towards the closest cam sprocket. If you put them on upside down or backwards, they will damage the belts. There is a 4 valve shim tool from those guys too. But take the cams out after measuring your clearances. Keep the tappets and shims together and make sure the tappets go back in their respective bores. Write down with a sharpee your clearances and measure each with a micrometer. You may be able to move them around to get the clearances and only have to buy a few shims to get your clearances in the correct range. Hope that helps. Also, make sure you use a good sealant, like Dow Corning 730 when you install the valve covers back on. It makes a big difference on keeping oil leaks from coming back prematurely. D
Speedmore, thank you. May use a dial indicator to verify TDC but my experience is limited success with the dial indicators due to lash between when the piston fully rises and starts to fall. Your method sounds simple and accurate. The shoes were installed incorrectly at the prior major. The belt shows some wear due to abrasion from the incorrect shoes. Lucky I addressed the major prior to premature failure. The Dow Corning 730 tip is appreciated. Thanks again.
That's what is called "Dwell Time" a longer rod is a way to increase that dwell time. If you don't have a TDC stop, you can use a long rod or a long screw driver to "touch" the piston through the spark plug hole. As you come up to TDC stop as soon as the screw driver stops rising. Make a reference mark with a sharpee or paint pen. Turn again, as soon as the screw driver starts to go down, stop, make another reference mark. Do this several times to make sure you repeat your ref marks. You are doing the crank and rods, so forget about belt tension. Once you have the two marks clearly identified, make another mark exactly in the middle of those two marks and you have TDC. You want to me really snazy, you can take an old spark plug, knokc out the center and tap threads into it. Then take a long aluminum dowel, of correct size and tread it so it can go through the hold plug and down to the piston. A good engine builder will do this even if the crankshaft is marked as they can be stamped a tad off too. Have fun. Just taking a break from doing water pump, cambelt, seals and clutch on my Euro 308 today.....yep, that's right, I'm working on my own car finally. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Very ingenious with the spark plug Speedmore. But why do you tap treads? Don't you want the dowel to be able to move freely? Another thing, when you are using the micromiter to get the thickness of the valve shims, do the same for the new ones. Even thought they come marked from the factory, they are not all the same. For example if they new ones read 4.25mm they actually could be 4.225, 4.23, or 4.24 etc. You want to get the correct size for the valve so that you stay within the tollerances.
Also when you change out the rear cam seal, a nice trick to get the new one in is to use the 26mm socket that you used to take off the pully on the cranck, to tap the new seal in place. It fits perfect inside the seal housing, and keeps the seal from popping up on one side or the other. You can also do this with the front cam seals.
While I'm at it, if you haven't pulled the idler bearing off yet here is another trick. Take a long socket, I think a 12mm will fit in the hole, or is it a 13mm, anyway a long socket that will fit in the hole that the bolt cam out of. Put it in the hole then grab the back of the bearin with the puller hooks. Put the tip of the puller, the part that is the screw, on the long socket. This will put pressure on the bearing, and not the bracket that the bearing is pressed into. After you get the bearing to the top of the socket, if you need to, put another short socket into the hole and pull the bearing all the way off. If you just try to pull the bearing off without doing this you could break the bracket that holds the bearing. My bracket was busted and I had to get another one to the tune of $115.00 for a used one.
Interesting points......now if you have some trick to getting the bearing out of the case without pulling the front cover. I just found the 5-8 bank cam drive pulley outer bearing blown apart. I can obviously get the pulley off and then remove the snap ring....the seal was already gone. However, unless I can get some sort of puller or slide hammer attachment, the whole front cover comes off. I haven't pulled the 308 cover off in the car or without removing the transmission......should be fun....not. D Image Unavailable, Please Login
Man that blows chunks. Sorry but I don't have any trick for that. So guess you are gonna have to do it the hard Italian way. The good part is that you are doing it yourself, so you will save on laybor, but not frustration. I feel your pain brother.
Yup same damn thing happend to my car eariler this year. I'm pulling the mill out next week for a rebuild. I ordered all new bearings and seals for that from Ferrari U.K. came to like 100 bucks for the 4 bearings and 2 seals. You could try and locate them localy. They are SKF bearings here are the numbers... 6203-r51/c4vg154. 2 required and.... 6201. 2 required seal size is...22-40-7..Baum3x7. Quick question. The gears of the cam belt drive pullies are plastic/nylon type stuff. Would it be feesable to make the gears out of metal? Or would they be just too nosiey.
Hey Tom, Nick's ForzaFerrari sells some aluminum ones. Go to his site and check it out. http://www.nicksforzaferrari.com
Thanks Ernie..But i was talking about the gears that are in the engine block itself. These gears run off of the crankshaft and then from there drive the lower timing belt sprockets. The gears are supported by the bearing that is shot on speedmores car. I wish i had a pic from the parts mauel to show you..but it's at the shop.
Cool thanks for the bearing nos. I got the bearing out, but the shaft is dicked up and the seal behind as well. I think the inner bearing is tost too. Maybe the gear teeth too, doesn't feel good. The cam belt had a ton of slop. BTW, I just rescued this car......pulled out of a storage shed where it sat for 2 years by previous owner (I originally sold this car to him).........it was in terrible shape. I figured on the possiblitity of rebuilding the engine, it leaked down reasonably ok for as long as it had sat without turning over........I got it running to quickly shut it down after hearing the bearing about to fail. So, I'll be taking it apart tomorrow. Did you remove the front cover with the engine in the car by removing the studs for the trans? Similar to removing front cover off of Testarossa? What about the oil pump and drive. Or should I just bite the bullet and pull the engine...........?
I don't think there is enough stud to do the double nut thing. I think it's best to pull the engine. There is a total of 4 bearings for the internal gears.
I can get those studs out with 2 jamb nuts...if they come. May pull the engine out anyhow to make the cam seals, valve adjust and thorough replacing of hose etc. The car sat for a long time.
You tap the threads so you can stop the piston at the same point going forwards and backwards (cams out of the heads). The piston will touch the 'plug at the same crankshaft angle from both directions. Set the goinometer (degree wheel) so that it reads the forward stop and the backward stop at the same number of degrees away from TDC. This is several times more accurate than the puch marks on a standard engne.
