Help deciding about cam drive bearings

500 mile old bearings seems a bit unnecessary?
I had to do mine as they were literally wobbling around. You could grab hold and move them by hand. Mine had about 34,000 miles on them though.

If you do them they are not that bad to do. You need a slide hammer and a bit of ingenuity to create a half round that will engage into the race.

 

i would caution about the low mileage bearing over 24 years dry can cause pitting then rust and contaminated oil as the grind compound.'
You really should look before deciding no as it can cause damage throughout

On a very low mileage Dino clutch job the top drop gear bearing had rusted then pitted THEN the lower bearing shows signs of light haze at race. I suppest the rusted dust moved from one bearing pittting to provide the grinding on other bearing.
Both bearings had to be replaced. Any sign of degrade and you will know it will only fail faster

Your risk is not that one of the 500 mile bearings will wear fast BUT that it will do much more damage to others when it does.
Rust contaminates lubricants for a rouge. Fight this with early gear oil changes - not for lubrication but for washing contaminations out

 

Splash lubrication of ball bearings is vastly different from sealed bearings in the front cover.
I honestly wouldn't stress it, no leaks, no play. Very likely just fine.

To doubley make sure, you'd have to split the block and pull the cover to check spin, etc... doesn't seem worth it.

Get it running, listen with a stethoscope and if it's crunchy, look at replacement. Otherwise probably just fine.

 

If those bearings have corrosion from the time the car sat idle they would be the least of your worries because it would mean you most likely have internal corrosion throughout the entire engine. I replaced mine at 50k because I have an '83 with the smaller bearings and because I have a friend who had one fail after a belt service. So I figured Ferrari upped the size of those bearings for a reason. But I think that in general we tend to go overboard on maintenance with these cars and I have certainly been guilty of it myself in the past.

 

Could be, could also be oil and dirt from the cam seals above finding it's way down as well.

 

Well you've gotten this far, are you willing to go the rest of the way? Because it's pretty brutal, this blind extraction. You'll need another tool and you're only going to replace the outers, it's a tandem bearing and to replace the inners you'd have to remove the timing cover. If you decide to proceed make sure you don't lose that shim that goes between the bearings. As far as that "grease" goes, not sure what that is but it seems unlikely that it came from the bearings in my opinion. Of course I could be wrong so does that help?

 

That shim is actually a big ol Belview washer, giant spring washer, to accommodate the thrust of the gears and thermal expansion. Critical piece that one.

 

Seems like at least one is missing from every car I take apart these days.
Makes you wonder who's working on them.

 

Exactly, clean off gently and get a good view.
I can nnot see the seal face or edge well