overheating

I want to see if anybody can help me out with my overheating problem. my fans dont seem to want to stay on....when i turn on the car one turns on when cuts off. i took off the fans and put direct power to them and they turn so i dunno. i'm guessing its either my relay of the temp senor. its on a 89 iroc 350ci

How hot??
The fans aren't designed to stay on...
Are you sure it's overheating??gage senders do go bad..

well according to the temp gauge it'll get up to 260. now i havent checked the actual temp of the coolant in the radiator so i dunno. but when it hits 260 the fans still dont turn on. from what i have researched one is suppose to turn on at 220 and 240...so i mean something isnt right. maybe the temp senor in the head is faulty

The fan, one of them anyways, is designed to come on at a certain temp. Get a scantool and see what temp the ECM sees. Compare it to the temp at the gauge and see if there is much of a difference. The sensor in the front of the manifold is what the ECM goes off. The sensor between #1 & #3 exhaust port on the cylinder head is what your gauge goes off. Those may vary.

what type of scan tool could i use to determine the temp the ecm is reading?