355 BELT CHANGE-TO DROP ENGINE OR NOT------------

Tony,

I think there was a discussion on this a few weeks ago on the Ferrari Club of America site in the V8 technical forum. You might want to try an advanced search there to get your answer.

Paul

 

I think he's saying that there is a guy who says he can change the belt on a 355 w/o dropping the engine and he's going to document it and photograph it to show it's legit... am I right?

Brad

 

This degenerates into what youthink "properly" means. If you take the position that a major is supposed to put the engine "bay" as close as factory fresh as possible, then drop the engine. If you take the position that you are only in need of changing the belts and tensioners, then you can do the job with the engine in the car.

Ask him how set checks (and resets) the cam timing (as needed) with the engine in the car?
Ask him how he checks every little water hose for wear, tear, bloat and degredation?

 

Tony

I had mone done at maranello's last week. Full engine out Job. Also had the cam covers re-sprayed looks magnificent now. Carl took out the cats for me on Sat and I am now extremely happy.

regards
james

 

tony

there's a thread on this over in techtalk

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10995

 

Why take out the whole engine if the same job can be done without the hassle!!

As long as a good inspection of other potential components is carefully carried out , hey good on yer !!

Did,nt J.R. Hartley write a book on this...?? Cambelts by J.R. HARTLEY..!!

Oh b@llox wheres the yellow pages???

 

On my car, we found 8 little water hoses that were beyond their reasonable service life. These would not have been visible if the engine was left in the car. That is, even with a mechanics mirror, inspecting these hoses would not have found the pending trouble. And I would have been left stranded somewhere when I would be least happy to be left stranded.

On my regular cars and trucks, when they get to 60K miles, I take them in, point at the engine bay and tell the service manager; "Change everything that is rubber in there". In 35 years of driving I have never been let down or stranded by coolant leaks.

In an F355, there are so many little hoses and access is so problematic that dropping the engine seems reasonable--to me. In my major, I put in $1000 in rubber in the engine bay during the major. In addition, 3 of the 8 cam seals were at the end of their lives and beginning to leak. These require pulling the cams to switch. But then again, I go to the track 18 times a year, I drive the F355 there, drive the snot out of it on the track, and drive back. I really don't want a water hose problem at 5:00 PM after a long hot day with the sun setting.......

 

I'd be interested to know what the cost difference is.