355 engine mystery

Thats the way it always happens. In the past 2 or 3 years there have been several such threads here. All the same, no noise just a power loss. I have fixed many motors with a broken belt, all exactly the same, just a dead bank. No noise, no drama just an expensive repair.

 

Sorry for you trouble but your experience is why Ferrari went to 3 years on belts.

 

What exactly failed on these? Everything was in working order and the belt simply snapped?

 

I would really like to see the hydraulic tensioners and tensioner pulleys to see if this was the cause of the failure.
I just took off my belts ( I am doing a major service on my 355 in another post) and they were in perfect condition ALTHOUGH
the left tensioner is leaching grease.
I know the recommended service is to change the tensioner pulleys every second tbelt change but in my case, (according to the dealers service history) they were changed at the last belt change.......certainly won't be used again.

So, did a tensioner pulley fail? And when was it last changed?

 

What does perfect condition mean? They still had all their teeth? Belts get hard with age and are less resiliant. Cant tell that by eye.

Who says the recommendation is every other belt change? Ferrari never did.

They weep grease the first time they get hot.

Like I said, Ferrari says 3 years. This is why.

 

Still had all their teeth? Unlike this?
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Actually the 'Ferrari DEALER' did say to change the tensioner bearings every other belt change on the 355 (although I intend to change my tensioner bearings with every t belt change).
And only one of my two tensioner bearings weeped grease.....the other one is as clean as the day it was installed.
As for the belts....there is no evidence of any wear of any kind, including missing or chaffed teeth, ect. ....although I do agree that rubber does harden with age.

In any case, if it were my car, I would want to determine the cause of the failure.....and to that end I would start with the tensioner pulley and hydraulic tensioner.

 

Belts snap and actually break only very rarely. They just strip a few teeth off at the drive pulley. It is the same with most cars.

 

That was their opinion. It is not the policy of FNA or Ferrari Spa.

 

In addition to the tensioner pulleys I am also replacing the hydraulic tensioners and waterpump even though they appear to be ok. They have been in the car for 14 years and owe me nothing.

I also make sure the car is run regularly to prevent the problem that 'garage queens' have with tbelts shearing teeth, ect....even in the winter when I am unable to run the car on the highway I run the engine up to full operating temperature to 'excercise' the tbelt.
I am a strong believer in preventative maintenance.

 

I hate to sound repetitive, in the cases where the belt did snap, I'm assuming something else failed first (tensioner, bearing etc...) causing excessive stress on the belt causing it to snap.

Most of the belt failures I've come across (non Ferrari) the water pump is the #1 suspect, followed by a siezed roller or tensioner. Since the 355 TB doesn't run on the water pump, that scenario is out.

Were a lot of the failures due to bad bearings discussed in a different thread? Are there too many shops out there willing to simply slap a belt on?
Is the timing belt supplier the culprit? I've come across non OEM Porsche belts there were garbage.


Just the other week my local VW / Audi dealer told a customer changing the rollers and water pump during a 50,000 miles TB job was a waste of money. You cannot even trust the dealers anymore.

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse here. I'm awfully curious (as I'm sure a lot of people are) what the smoking gun is with fazzaz1's belt.

 

I try very hard not to work on the kind of cars that are not likely to have price shopper parts in them so I do not know if I have ever even seen a non OE belt in service.

Most of the time I have seen a belt that was actually broken it was foreign object damage. Something got between the belt and pulley. Even then if it is a reasonably fresh belt the belt is plyable enought to survive. I have seen some pretty bad stuff happen to belts that were not lifed out already.

Teeth can and do strip off just from being old and hard. They can also strip off from failures but most I have seen there was no failure of any kind except the belt and those belts have never been new belts.


All I can say is I hate to work on cars for free and my own Ferrari belts get changed when Ferrari says to do it. I have been working on these cars since near the time they went to belts and I can say from direct hands on experience their policy is a good one.

 

OUCH! sorry to hear, hopefully the damage isn't too pricey. I too would love to see pictures of how it failed and any info on the tensioner condition just to learn a thing or two.

While it's out...for the exhaust manifolds I went with Fabspeed headers ceramic coated, so far so good. Just need some extra heat shielding (especially on the alternator).

 

There are 3-4 available for the 928.
http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforums/6126300-post12.html

I guess it's reassuring you are not seeing new belts breaking!

I'm not disagreeing with the service recommendation, just curious that’s all. I change the TB on my 928’s every five years, they are not even valve benders.


What are the odds fazzaz1's car had one of the "bad bearings" installed? Just thinking outloud.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=217149

 

I change them mostly because I have no desire to have any vehicle in the garage that I can't at a moments notice get in, twist the key and drive to the other side of the country and back. I just cannot stand not having that degree of confidence in my vehicles and good recent timing belts are part of that.



We are all just guessing at this point. Anything is possible.

 

What about the piston damage? Is that it just bent valves??? No damaged heads, pistos ect? Do you have any pictures? The more the better please

 

While some damage is possible it's typically mostly cosmetic. The valves take the brunt of the crash.

 

Glad its all back together mate Although more photos of this rare event would have been good No pictures at all of the event/work/dammage.
So because your tensioner seized, does that mean that your tensioners were not replaced during your last belt change?? I wonder how old they were.
If they were changed they would last a lot longer than 3 years, what bearings were used on the tensioner?
Maybe the last owner bought cheeper tensioner bearings, also to keep the cost down to the fraction of the cost of Ferrari standard

 

Awesome - good to hear she's back on the road!

+1,000,000,000,000

I asked in a previous post when the last belt change was. He said he purchased the car in 2003 with 26,000+ miles and it just had a fresh major.

 

I just dont know, something dont sit right with all this.

 

Maybe the owner bought OEM Ferrari parts and had to deal with that!

 

So much for the so called "Ferrari Standard".......I believe that to be somewhere between "crap" and "more crap" with a non-return policy....lol

 

So then ifthat was the case, and the belt was changed within 3 years or 30k miles. Then should Ferrari not have pick up the bill?