355 Water temp sending unit

I think he means the gauge sender unit..

it's in the valley on top of the block... very hard to get to.

 

Isn't that the fan switch, not the sending unit for the gauge?

If the 355 is like the 348, the sending unit is up on top of the engine.

(Like Phil says, quicker than me).

 

In that case.... (better?)
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If I'm not mistaken, it's #39 on the picture.

 

#39 is the transmitter; #40 is the sensor

 

Ernie is correct the sender for the guage is #39. No. 40, there are two on 2.7 cars one on 5.2 cars, is(are)the temp. sender(s) for the engine ECU(s). If you remove the center cover between the intake plenums you can get to it fairly easily it's on the right side of that crossover pipe no. 38, hope this helps. Regards, Vern

 

Well if you want you can check the connections on the back of the instrument housing.

It's pretty easy to take it off.

There are two screws on the bottom corners of the housing. Remove those and then lift the housing off. The screws are the only things holding the housing in place. So after they are off all you have to do is lift it straight up. If you lower the stearing collum all the way down it can give you a little more room to work with.

Once you have the housing off you can check the connections on the back.

 

There are some photos on this page that show the removal of the instrument pod:

http://ricambiamerica.com/product_info.php?cPath=2&products_id=261189

 

I actually had a dual failure this summer on my 97 F355 spider. It was both the guage and the sender according to the Ferrari dealer. That's why it was so hard to troubleshoot. I made the mistake of doing the hardest thing first because my symptoms, were a partial failure where I would achieve 170 in a hot parking lot this summer and 130 degrees going 100mph in 100 degree OAT. It lead me to think I had a thermostat failure, so I removed that and boiled an old one i had replaced at the 30K with the new one and the new one performed perfectly to spec. I strongly suspect its the guage in the dash just because mine failed. Like we say in the airplane business "there are no isolated failures" If my guage failed so has yours. Cost =$345

 

Hey Brett, I didn't need to use the quote for this but, if it is your guage let me know. I have one out of my '97 that worked fine when I removed it. Instead of buying a new one at 300+ I would sell you the gauge I have. Regards, Vern