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

[E M (pokiebaron]

Nice save Batman!! :-)  I've seen the inside of engines where belts have
skipped, or broken.  Not pretty!

Ed
911SC

2008/11/9 jim <jimshadow [at] verizon.net>

> 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.....)
>
>
>
>
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