Ferrari 360 Spider Replace Main Cylinders in the Capote

According to the Ferrari 360 Workshop Manual, the main lift cylinders that power the capote require pulling out the "capote" cassette in order to access them. For an expert with all the right equipment, it could take 10+ hours to remove the entire convertible top assembly. And of course, another ten to put it back in the car.

This write up shows that the task can be completed within the car.

Please follow this link to the document.

Ferrari 360 Spider Replace Main Cylinders (pdf)

Author: Simon Newby

Comments

Capote Elastic Bands Replacement

Virtually every Ferrari 360 and 430 has failing elastic bands in the capote, or soft top. The only cars that don't have these items failed right now have had them replaced in the last five years. My car is no exception and my original 20 year old elastic bands are well past the time they should be replaced. The top has a number of elastic bands that help control how it folds up and how things move. These bands are the same type of material as appears in underwear and stretch pants. As these things age, they wear out. So just like your old underwear, the elastic on the 360/430 top loses it's stretch. One of the things these elastic bands do is control a bar that shapes the headliner and roof line. This bar has to be pulled back and lie flat so the rest of the machinery that constitutes the top can fit into the tiny little space in the back of the car. When the elastic bands give out, the bar doesn't move to the right spot and the frame can impact on that bar as the top folds

Bosch Throttle Body (Holder) Woes

My 360 started going into limp mode a while back. It was subtle at first, with it starting to lose power after 4,000 RPM's and then less subtle when it would barely go above idle. Limp mode protects the car when some vital part has malfunctioned. I know a master Ferrari tech that is nice enough to answer questions for me about the car. He lives more than five hundred miles away and it's like telemedicine. The codes indicated a problem in the drive-by-wire circuit, likely culprit: One or more TB's or the accelerator potentiometer (AP), which is the foot pedal sensor. I had a good code reader that could monitor the AP voltages (2) and they appeared to be within specification. That left the TB's, one or both. After a long discussion with the tech, his answer was to replace the throttle bodies (TB). The Ferrari 360 has two TB's. One for each bank of four cylinders. To the Ferrari mentality, replacement could only be with two new TB's: "Ferrari likes replacing

Make a Bosch Throttle Body Tester

Bosch throttle body for the Ferrari 360. If you've got a Bosch throttle body (series 280 750 ---) on your car, and it isn't a Ferrari 360, then it's likely if anything goes wrong, or is even suspected of being wrong with your throttle body, you'll just replace it. They're inexpensive, typically under $150, and super easy to install. However, if you have a Ferrari 360 and suspect an issue with your throttle bodies (plural), then you're probably sweating right now. The stock of new OEM throttle bodies (aka holder) has been exhausted for years. There just aren't any more and there will likely never be any more produced. Used throttle bodies are generally useless, due to the requirement that both units be matched. Unmatched units, as in one degrading faster than the other, result in trouble codes and limp mode. Luckily, the same exact innards to the 360's throttle bodies exist on quite a few other cars and these innards can be transplanted into the old 360

Ferrari 360 Spider

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