1988 Mondial 32. Cab I have a leak on the front cam cover, looks like the classic leak were the oring seal on the can belt side meets the cam gasket. Not huge, but enough that I would rather not let it go on too long. I have read various threads on this, taking the cover off is fine, but I presume the camshaft itself has to be removed to do the O ring? Is this so, and can the cam be removed and reinstalled, ie kind of like locking the cams for doing belts, can one somehow remove and replace the cam without having to degree the cam on installation? Is it possible to just do the cam gasket with the original O ring being left in place if there is no visbile sign of damage, or is it always renewed when people remove the cover, eg. for checking valve clearances? Basic questions I know, but this is the first time I will have had to tackle this.
Have a look on the top right hand corner of the engine and see if you have the 2 timing ref plates. Pt no 125109+125110. Not done this O ring job but as far as i know you use these ref points to check the cam positions when doing the belts- be sure to turn engine in direction of rotation. So you should be able to use these as ref points for your cams. Anyone else chime in if they are better informed please.
Yes, I do have those items, I was never sure what they were used for before. Makes sense there would be something to help the mechanics be efficient with the service requirements.
Yes, you have to remove the cam to replace the seal and oring. The 88 engine also has the backing plate behind the timing belt which makes the job even harder, not to mention removal of the AC components. Ferrari also recommends not re-using the timing belt once you have it removed. So, in summary, you really should be doing a timing belt job on that half of the engine. You can reuse the roller bearing and the tensioner. Do people cheat and just reuse everything? Yes. Do people cheat and do a semi lock and swap to just replace the seals until next service? Yes. Still a big job. Good luck.
A "semi lock and swap"? Can you elaborate? Looks like pretty poor design to have to dismantle to this extent to replace an O ring, that of course will take a set and not seal well after not too long a period of time. Maybe one could split the O ring, feed it in and reglue it on the top, maybe add a dollop of hylomar. I know this sounds like amateur hour, but really, there has to be a practical bodge to deal with a simple minor leak.
If you cut the O ring, you need to cut it square and re glue it with superglue, you can buy a kit with a plastic jig to cut the O ring but cannot recall the maker.
The end of the cams have a stamped line that matches up to the indicators. You take the plugs out and turn crank in correct direction until crank mark matches crankcase mark, if the cams match the pointers you are in position, if not go another 360 degrees
If you have not performed the factory modifications detailed in various TSB.s it will likely never stop leaking. If those have been done replacing the O ring and gasket is worth trying.The factory quit paying us to remove the cams to replace the Orings on warranty repairs during production. We were instructed to cut and roll in O rings and it works very well, but again, only if the factory modifications have been performed.
I am only the second owner, and the cam covers had been removed in a major service (eg. Checked valve clearances) done at the original Switzerland dealer who sold and serviced the car before I had bought it. I would expect the dealer would have been current on the TSB updates at that time. The car currently has about 75k km on it, up from the 28k when acquired, and has never leaked at the camcover area before. I did do the shift shaft and diff seals (using your technique of not removing the oil sump to do the shift shaft seals) which I replaced a couple of years ago, so I suppose age and heat might be taking its toll on other seals. Thank you kindly for the confirmation that cutting the O ring as a short cut has been done. I will have to get in there and see how things look. I am getting closer to the time to do the belts/ bearing changes, so this may well evolve into a bigger project anyways.
I spent a lot of years in dealers, big, good dealers and come nowhere close to your optimism that the TSBs were performed. I see far fewer that have than have not.
O Ring splicing kit , have a look to see if that is useful. They have a plastic cutting jig in them so you get the ends square. Used a lot in industry
Yes, I appreciate that there is always time pressures that get in the way of thorough service. I am presuming that a cover reseal done at the time that has not leaked in more than 15 years must have been done properly, and could be done so again.
Dont want ends square. Cut O ring on long diagonal, slide it in. Put cut portion at top with a very large overlapping area and a little sealant.
No I dont. I dont think they ever wrote one for an 88 Swiss Mondial 3.2. They did write a few that applied to every single belt drive 4 valve V8 made. Been spoken of here many times. Unless its better if I just come by and do it for you.
I think the kit will not help join the cut ring in situ, looks like a good kit to have around though to make ones own O rings of any size required. I have just bought some Loctite Permabond 820 to glue a new OEM ring together after I cut it, angled makes alot of sense and would give a greater surface area for the glue to bond, it is a high temp superglue that works on viton, the rings I ordered are the brown viton.
Thank you, I did not think there was one relevant to that year of Mondial 3.2. The TSB's are very specific to years and model numbers they apply to, but I suppose Ferrari might have missed something in documentation. In any event, I am going to try a cam cover reseal with the cut O ring approach, and see how it goes. I will be doing more research as I get this project underway, for now the goal is to understand how others have approached the O ring seal issue.
What Brian is speaking about is the drilling of an additional oil drain hole at the bottom of the recess hole where the cam seal fits into. That is a design fault affecting all QV and 3.2 engines. There is a jig that is required to perform this task as well as an extra long drill bit that will reach all the way through to the inside of the head . Needless to say, the metal bits from the drill need to be addressed after the operation. The jig can be rented from someplace (I do not have the name). Without the additional drill hole, you will have a higher chance of leaks again. This is not an operation that any dealer automatically does on such an old car now. They probably don't have access to the jig anymore and ... an oil leak on a Ferrari is ... expected normal operating parameters.
Thank you for clarifying, I will look out for that when things are apart, maybe I have the drain hole previously done. Sportgarage Leirer AG was and is a respected dealer in Switzerland, and they were very helpful in giving me the full history of the car many years ago when I was doing due diligence on the car before purchasing it.
Well I finally got around to replacing the front bank cam O ring that was the source of the oil leak. As suggested in this thread, I cut a new Viton O ring with a razor and an angle to allow the glue to have more surface area to stick, fed it into the slot (you kind of turn the cam seal holder which is floating and help feed the ring into the groove, it is quite tight and I used a dab of oil on it to make the feed in possible), cleaned the cut ends with alcohol and glued it with superglue, a special formula from McMaster Carr that works on Viton. The original O ring was black and probably not Viton, the new ones are brown in colour. The leaking lower cam O ring had the nicks in it from the cam cover gasket, probably the source of the leak, the other upper cam O ring looked fine. The prior service used a bit too much of the silicone, but it had held well for a long time. The cam cover came off cleanly, the gaskets were mostly dry. The new gasket set, packaged as Ferrari OEM, did not have the built in red silicon beading like the ones I removed. This was all done on the front bank accessed through the back seat access panel. One removes the bracket that help support the air injection pipes, the dist cap/wires, rotor, distrbutor seal housing, and cam cover plate beside the distributor. You remove the throttle cable from the throttle body, this allows the rubber cable sheath/protector to be pulled out a bit to allow the cam cover to be wiggled out of the access panel area. By the way, have on hand a new M1x20mm cotter pin for the throttle cable to throttle body attachment fitting, it is not a common size that small. I left the gaskets mostly dry, I put a little bit of Curil T (like Hylomar) on the areas where you trim the cam cover gasket at the distributor seal housing and cam end cover. I did put a dab of high temp Permatex silicone at the O ring to gasket junctions, which appears to be the standard practice based on many other threads. Torque the cover nuts with new wave washers to 6.5lbs, which is less tight than one might expect. As there is no snow and this is unusually warm and dry with little road salt, I just test drove the car on a good long highway run. Everything is sealed up perfectly, no leaks!! Yes it is tempting to do other "while you are in there tasks" once you get the cam cover off, but this could end up being a valve shim, cam removal, new timing belts/bearings project, none of which are really required. I just wanted to address the leak as the goal. So for those with a similar goal, I can confirm the "cut and glue" O ring technique appears to be a practical solution Some pics in random order.... 1.Old gasket ends. 2.Permatex Glue. 3.New gasket to new O ring fit. 4.Old O ring with alot more sealant than I used. 5.Air injection bracket that is removed to get at the distributor cap, dist seal housing, etc. 6.View of front bank through access panel. 7.New Viton O ring cut and threaded in. 8.New O ring all glued together. 9.Centre and lower new cam cover gasket abutting the O ring seals where one dabs the silicone sealant. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
