Oil Temp Gauge

Is it pegged right with the key off o, r only with the key on ?  If with key on I would first disconnect the temp sender wire, if the gauge drops back to the left you may a bad sender. If not leave the wire connected at the sender then disconnect the sender wire at the ...gauge and see if that allows the needs to drop.   Let us know and we can narrow it down.

Alan, it was pegged to the right when we were driving it and when it is sitting in my garage not running and keys out of the car.  By the way, where is the sender connected to the engine?

Alan, after posting to you, I thought I would go and start the car again to see what would happen.  I started it and now the needle is back in its normal position, on the low temperature box on the gauge.  What is up with that?  Yesterday when I drove the car it was in the 90's but we probably only drove the car a max of 5-7 miles, but only at 30mph.  I only drive the car in the Summer time around town, and have never had a temperature problem in the past.

Time between first rear and second read?     5-7 miles at 30 MPH the engine isn't going to get that hot with the exception if the belt was thrown or very loose. 

The oil gauge reads resistance through the sender to ground.  Assuming you have the standard gauges, a short to ground will peg it to the right, an open circuit will drop it to the left or "0".  Very rare for a sender to go bad, so I'd look at wiring, look for signs of critters or bare wires or a loose connection that fell off.

@356GS (Greg) wrote: "By the way, where is the sender connected to the engine?"

Looking at the engine with the rear cover open, it's easy to find the distributor cap with the four big spark plug wires attached.

Finding that, look around the left side of the cap and down to the engine case and you should see two sensors screwed into the case.  Where they screw in is horizontal, but without seeing what'cha got it's hard to say what they look like, but each one has a wire attached.  One is temperature, the other is for the oil pressure light.  

Working on one at a time, remove the wire terminal and clean what it pushes on to with light sandpaper or 0000 steel wool.  Inspect the wire terminal for a loose crimp (which could cause an intermittent connection) and if it's OK, then replace it on the sensor.

Do the same for the other sensor and then try a road test to see if that improved things.

There are several other places where the oil temp sensor might be installed.  Mine is near my oil filter.

Yeah, I know that, but the vast majority are where I pointed to.  If it's different, Greg will be back on here asking about it.  With so many variations in the Speedsters out there no one can be sure what's in anything without actually seeing it.

So, Greg:  Can you get a photo of the area I described?  We can then proceed with better info.

@Gordon Nichols, I thought it might be more common for the oil light and oil pressure gauge sender to be at the location you mentioned.