[348] Show us your belts and bearings!

Jeez! Those don't look so hot.

Mine is an F355 but the belts and bearings that came off looked almost as clean/new as the new belts and Hill Engineering tensioner bearings I installed in their place.

 

That is a little gross looking, with the belt degradation. How did the bearings themselves feel, as far as function goes? Noisy/loose/tight?

 

Got to say that paul hills gear is great. I have used his stuff for 11 years.
I have just rebuilt my flywheel and clutch, so i took the opportunity to check the condition of my 10 year old Hills thrust bearing seals and carrier. Every thing is in great condition. The original factory unit went FUBAR after just 5 years by blowing through the alloy case. I mean look at the meat om the hills bearing case
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Wow, that belt and bearing doesn't look too good Wade.

 

Mine were just over 9 years old and 11,000 miles and looked much better than yours.

There was hardly any wear on the belt, and the tensioners did not have any of the belt worn onto them.

 

That's very strange wear, Wade. The back of that belt had to be rubbing on something.

For contrast, here are some shots of the belt on the sister car to yours, which has been in service a few months longer than yours but has only covered between three and four thousand miles.
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Dang Wade. You are confirming my decision to keep my car in storage until I do the Major. I cleaned it up and parked it a few months ago since I still haven't decided on the water pump/oil pump chain guide. I want to replace water pump while I'm in there, but I'm holding out for a better design. Oil pump chain pad could be still good for all I know, but I was thinking about replacing it anyway if I'm going to go through the trouble of pulling the oil pan to check it.

 

Yup, incorrectly set or loosened follower would have been my guess for scraping the back side of that belt.

 

Thanks, Wade. That's what I suspected but didn't want to jump to the conclusion.

 

Wade, did you do any research into the longevity of the newer style factory front bearing and chain tensioner pad? I've tried to get a sense of how much life can be expected from those components based on posts here but haven't been able to gather much real feedback. There's no reason to suspect that there is anything with mine and I'd like to think that the updated parts would last for 40k total miles, so it's tough to decide whether to go to the effort of replacing them over the winter or to assume I'm safe for another five years.

 

Talking to SRI, the impression I got for the factory updated material and the modern day aftermarket replacement piece is to expect a lifespan of about 40-50k mi. (rough estimation)

 

Wade, which water pump did you use? Vendor?

Re TSB 10-34: Anybody hear of cars with assembly numbers >4384 having the cam or oil chain pad wear issue?

 

From the pics I've seen posted here it seems as though the factory pad material wears pretty quickly, regardless of the type of tensioner fitted. What I have not been able to determine is just how quickly... The million dollar question is, just how many miles can we reasonably expect those pads to last before it becomes prudent to replace them?

 

exactly, I will have a picture of my 17K original tensioner in the next month. I need to do the cam drive ball bearing update anyway, so it will be out.

 

Excellent! Please post it.