Hi folks My name is Andrew and I live on the Isle of Wight, UK. Yesterday my wife and I bought a yellow F355 Berlinetta 1997. It was described as perfect and full service history, but in fact there is a fault (let's hope the only one). The air gets hot and cold (I hope the A/C works, but it was such a cold day yesterday it was hard to tell) and the fan operates as it should, but the air only comes out of the windscreen demist vents no matter where the control knob is set. Is this a common or rare fault? Does anyone know how involved it might be to fix? I was able to use this as a bargaining tool to reduce the asking price by £500 so I'm hoping that might cover it. Is it a job strictly for a Ferrari specialist, or could it be tackled by mortal mechanic? If so is there a manual or a 'How to' out there? I am currently working on the ventilation of my '68 Aston Martin DBS so I know how complicated these systems can be. I had to upgrade the fan and rebuild the matrix case on my E-type to get any kind of meaningful warmth out of it and the A/C on my Fiat Coupe gave up years ago. I think I am cursed. One other thing, my insurers, who are Hagerty, insist that a tracker security system is fitted, which given that we live on an island and no one could take it off without everyone knowing seems a bit OTT. Do all insurers in the UK insist on this?
Give this link a try for comparison to your problem. http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/348-355-sponsored-bradan/431747-355-climate-control-air-direction-not-working.html
This little thing is jammed into the side of the evaporator box: 63307100 TIMING ACTUATOR - Ricambi America, Inc. Assuming your control panel is working correctly, it is not uncommon for this little motor to fail. It opens/closes a tambour which controls air deflection. (p.s. Congrats on your new Ferrari!!)
At the top of this section is a sticky with a grouping of threads of common issues - often a useful first port of call Do we get a photo !
Thanks for the help and cograts. I'll post photos when I actually get the car. I've paid a deposit, it will need an annual service with belts (ouch!), so I will get it sometime on or after the 1st March
I picked up the car last Friday. For the first 50 miles I had no heat at all until I turned the car off in standing traffic and when I started it again, suddenly I had heat. I have tried the re-set by turning the battery off overnight, but it didn't reset the air direction so I'll have to get under the dash later. I posted a pic in the 'The picture you took of your F355 today' thread, but here is another; Image Unavailable, Please Login
congrats on the 355. fyi.....the heat only works when the ac is turned on....perhaps when you restarted the car you hit the ac button on the console.
Hi guys It's taken a while to get around to the job, but here's the story; I have taken out my tambour actuator and was expecting to find that the square plastic lug was broken which would be the cause of air only coming out of the screen vent only. However it is not broken. What I found was this; Image Unavailable, Please Login I have disconnected the 5 pin plug for the photo, but someone previously has cut the black, red, and purple wires and connected them to a new mini-loom of three wires (black, red, and blue). One is tempted to just re-connect it up as it would have been before, but whoever did it did it for a reason. Should I take off all the covers on the other side of the bulkhead and find where this new loom (at least I assume it's new) goes first or just cut the joins and re-connect to the old wires? My recirc flap is not doing anything either, but one step at a time...
Most of those wires go to the ECU (forward luggage compartment). The ECU location may depend on whether your car is left or right hand drive. According to the wiring diagram, a black wire should go to a common earth, another (one of two yellows) should go to the hot water valve motor. From the photo, I can't tell how many wires are in the black tape-wrapped bundle. Six? Or is the harness split into two: Four in the black harness and two in the yellow harness? The wiring diagram doesn't show wire colours coming from the actuator to the disconnect plug. It only shows the wire colours going from the disconnect plug to the car. Can you list the 5 colours coming from the actuator and also list the six colours in the car harnesses. We need to match those up. On the car side of the plug (according to the wiring schematic): White with black stripe (to pin19 of the ECU) Black (earth) Violet with black stripe (to pin 9 of the ECU) Yellow (to hot water valve motor) Yellow (to pin 12 of the ECU) Red with black stripe (to pin 18 of the ECU). On the actuator side (in your photo), I see: Violet? Red? Black? Green? Yellow? Your photo shows blue, red and green wires (which doesn't make sense). Is the photo showing underneath the passenger airbag and this is a left hand drive car?
Sorry, disregard my comments about the black taped harness. I thought that was the car's original wiring harness for the actuator plug. The plug is actually a 5-pin circular type plug. I don't know why the actuator is hooked up to that black tape wrapped mini-loom as you described it.. or what it fed originally. Yes, just hook up the cut wires to the original plug and we'll go from there.
We'll have to check the operation of the actuator. To do that, we need to figure out what wires do what. Can you see the wire colours going into the disconnect plug (from the car side)? Does the plug have 5 positions or 6 positions with one unused? If it has one unused, we can use that as a reference point.
The Black wire of the actuator does not go to the ground as it can be + or - depending on the actuator direction of rotation. The Red and Black wires are to the actuator motor and the AC ECU will send +/- 12V to these wires in one or the opposite orientation to move the air direction up or down. The Green, Yellow and Purple wires are from the actuator's potentiometer to tell the AC ECU the position of the air direction flap. All 5 wires of the actuator go to the AC ECU; the Green wire is also connected to the common (reference) point for the various AC system temperature sensors. You can bench test the actuator motor by connecting 12V to its Red and Black wires, in one and the opposite orientations, and see if it is rotating. Do the connections briefly only to avoid bringing the actuator to its end positions against the stops which will stall/overload the motor and the internal gears. The "new" harness is probably somebody's attempt to repair the flap operation or maybe just a bypass for three of the original harness wires suspected broken somewhere on the way to the AC ECU. I attach the AC system diagram for the 348 (much easier to follow than the 355's) which can probably be used for the 355.
Miro, I was talking about the car side of the plug. The F355 wiring is a little different from the F348 in this regard. However, because the actuators are common to both cars, with your description, it has made it possible to match up the wire colours of the actuator with the colours of the car harness in my diagram below. F355 5.2 HVAC wiring diagram
I really like your diagrams, have saved most of them. You can amend your details of the round connectors to show one unused pin as per the attached diagram. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Thanks for the comprehensive responses. Wow. The wiring diagram for the HVAC is more complicated than the entire wiring diagram for my old E-type! Incidentally, I have tried resetting the car electrics many times but the direction actuator has never moved (unlike the recirc flap which has moved occasionally). The car is LHD. Colours going into the actuator are Black, Red, Green, Yellow, and Purple/black. The connector is six holes with one unused. Anyway. I took the actuator out and applied 12v to the black and red wires. The good news; The actuator turns, and on reversing the wires it turns the other way . The bad news; I connected the power for less than a second each time, but even so got a little puff of smoke out of the actuator each time. I'm thinking that's not good ! To say the 'new' loom is there to bypass suspected broken wires makes perfect sense, except perhaps in that case I would expect it to run parallel with the old wires and pass through the bulkhead at the same place. Where does the HVAC ecu live? Do I need to find out where the new loom goes? I thought I'd post this progress before I reconnect to the old wires, to see what you think.
The fact that you got some smoke from the actuator suggests that it is not good, possibly has some short in the motor windings. Did it also produce some burning smell? It is possible that the motor's partial shorting gave the impression to the PO that there is something wrong with the wiring, thus the bypass (which might have been unnecessary). I would not connect the actuator again (through the original or "new" loom) as it may, if indeed shorted, cause damage to the AC ECU, if not already. I suggest you check the continuity of the 3 original wires, that have been bypassed, to the AC ECU and, if good, reconnect them at both ends and remove the added loom. As new actuators seem NLA, do some more tests on it to make sure it is bad - connect the 12V briefly again (alternating the orientation) but this time insert an ammeter (set at 10A range) to see what current the motor is drawing and let us know. When turning freely, a good motor should draw something around 0.10 amperes. Why I suggested the 10A range on the multimeter is because the next smaller range is usually 400 mA (0.4 A) and, if the motor draws more than that, it will blow the multimeter's fuse.
Thanks, guys. I've amended my diagram: F355 (5.2) Fig. 6. HVAC ... probably easier to see if you have a graphics program which can enlarge the diagram. Andrew, if you're not familiar with my diagrams, you can put them on an iPad or something similar and enlarge them with your fingertips. On a left hand drive car, it's in the forward luggage compartment on the right hand side under the large section of liner in front of the windscreen. From memory, it's near the suspension actuator. On my right hand car, I think it's on the left hand side. Anyway, the part number is shown in my diagram to help you find it. If you remove the liner, it may (or may not) give you some idea where that additional harness goes. Does that harness look like it has been wrapped in standard Ferrari cloth tape? I don't see any red and blue wire pairs on the HVAC diagram, so this would suggest they are completely new wires, but then why would you have a hole in the bulkhead with nothing going through it? Are the loose wires in the yellow sleeving in your photo airbag wires? The actuator looks like it has been resealed. If no luck with Miro's wiring checks, perhaps you can open it up and find out if there are any damaged cogs? As shown on the forum recently, the cogs literally melt with age (but this would probably be more evident on cars of the F348 era). If they can be replaced, it would be good if someone could 3D print replacement cogs.
Small correction: the Violet wire is plain Violet at the actuator side connector (Violet/Black at the other side connector is correct).
You may have got the last one, John.. Ricambi - not available Eurospares - new: to order.. subject to availability /second hand - available Scuderia Car Parts - Available to order (?) E-Bay - Currently sold out. Algar Ferrari Parts - NLA
