Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Disaster Averted, though I still have a problem!

[jim (jimshadow]

Rick,

I want to GET RID of the NA filled exhaust valves that are currently in my
motor...they are prone to fail.  My thinking is that if I'm going to pull
the motor I may as well take that preventive step....its something that I'm
kicking around in my head.    I spoke to a very well known mechanic who
currently has a motor on his bench that threw a sodium valve at low speed.
The motor had been out recently but the owner decided not to do them at that
time....   Its just something that's always in the back of my mind,
especially given how much I drive the car. 

JIM

-----Original Message-----
From: rolindsay [at] yahoo.com [mailto:rolindsay [at] yahoo.com] 
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 11:18 AM
To: jim; ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Disaster Averted, though I still have a problem!


May I just say;  DAMN!

So glad you caught that!  In fact, the nut on the front of the crankshaft -
holding the harmonic balancer in place - did the same thing on my E30M3. The
balancer wobbled and chewed up the end of the crankshaft - and replacements
aren't available. Estimate to repair IF a USED crank could be found was
$25,000!  That ended my love afair with M3s. 

As for your car; yes you are very lucky. That's where belts fail, not at the
larger diameter cam gear/pulley. I still have my failed belt as a
"maintenance reminder." It has about 8 teeth sheared off the belt.  Just
enough to allow the drive gear to spin freely. 

Jim, why the push to install fancy Na-filled exhaust valves?  Do you track
it at all? Stock valves should cool adequately in any normal use.  That car
is easily as quick, if not quicker than my 308GTB.  I wouldn't mess with
success. :-)  

Better quit typing. Thumbs tired. :-P

Rick

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: "jim" <jimshadow [at] verizon.net>

Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 10:59:10 
To: rolindsay<rolindsay [at] yahoo.com>
Cc: The FerrariList<ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
Subject: [Ferrari] Disaster Averted, though I still have a problem!


Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later....

Lets back track just a bit. Back in July I parked the GT4 to address a noise
that I had tracked to my front bank tensioner bearing. They were last
replaced 3yrs ago and I've put about 10-12,000 miles on her in the last 1.5
yrs. (I DRIVE this little GT4!!!) Not wanting to have a belt failure, I
decided to do the belts, bearings and give her a valve adjustment. All went
well and I got it back together just in time to road test and drive it 1200
miles r/t to Mississippi for the '308's in '08' Event. The car performed
like a champ and the noise had all but disappeared, that is until I got down
to the Memphis area. At the event I had Rick Lindsay and Ric Rainbolt give a
listen. Both agreed that it sounded strange and that it was likely a bearing
somewhere. 

Fast forward home and I'm out with a buddy grabbing coffee and going to see
a '63 Vette with '96 internals and 700ish HP. (Keep in mind that i've not
driven it since returning from the '308 Event but once). Well, that damn
noise was back, but this time getting louder and sounding worse, much worse.
Upon pulling into the 'Vette owners driveway I looked under the car and
noticed black oil on my alternator and on the frame near the balancer which
is not one of my usual leaks. So I limp the car home at 25mph and park it.
Today I started taking things apart and found that my front bank lower drive
gear was COMING OFF the shaft! I could spin the nut with my fingers. The
only thing keeping it on was the belt cover. You can see in the pics where
the gear was bumping into the cover and scoring it. 

The ironic thing is that I was just checking prices this past week on what
it would cost to finally do the sodium valves as preventive maintenance, now
this! 

I was convinced that the noise was my water pump bearing and I was going to
be torqued that I didn't do a 'while i was in there' and rebuild it when I
was doing the valve adjustment/belts. I was all ready to fire the car up
today and get out my mechanics stethoscope to figure this out when that nut
caught my eye. THANK GOODNESS that the gear did not let loose and throw my
belt off!!! I'm grateful for that for sure. I'm confident that I can do the
bearing job myself, however, I'm debating just pulling the motor and sending
it off to get the head work done as well as the bearings and a couple other
things....stay tuned and wish me luck!

JIM

(PS, my marks all line up, so no jumped belt teeth or anything like that. I
could not feel any play in the gear other than the slightest in/out movement
from that loose nut.....)