well that makes a hell of a lot more sense now, doesn't it.........

 

I picked up the sensor and harness today at the dealers. I'm going to put them in tomorrow. Funny thing, the past three days were much cooler in Oklahoma. During this time the coolant gage acted normal. This afternoon the day got hotter, and when I left work the coolant gage was all over the place again. I'm glad I got the parts because this is getting old fast.

 

do yourself a favor and solder + shrinkwrap vs splicing

 

So today is the day to replace the ECTS and harness. I didn't have a 13mm deep socket so a check on Home Depots website showed some 1/4" drive available, so I got one there. Got home and pulled out the air intake tube. Found the sensor and removed the connector, clipped it off and soldered and heatshrinked the joints. Tip#1: use a long grill lighter for this heatshrink. My big hands couldn't get in there with a short lighter.

Then I removed the sensor, put in the new one finger tight and then an easy snug on the socket wrench. I popped on the connection and black taped some of the excess wire hanging free. I topped off the coolant tank, installed the air intake tube and started it up. All of this took less than 1 hour, including the 25 minutes doing the Home Depot thing.

It started easy and settled on 1100 rpm during warmup. At the end of 6 minutes the rpm was down to 850 and the coolant temp had gradually climbed to just above the 1/4 mark.

There were no leaks so I shut the hood and took a 6 mile drive. The needle climbed to the position in the picture and the idle was about 800 in drive. It drove great!

Since i had the codes cleared 7 days ago I put about 250 miles on it and the Service Engine light did not come back on. Does that mean no codes were turned on? I don't think they'll come back, so I'm really happy with the whole turnout today.

The next project is replacing the tranny fluid and filter. Oh, I mentioned in a second thread that I replaced the gas cap gasket and that seems to be ok for the moment.

Thanks for the help everbody!

 

Good news, keep after it these are great cars.

 

Just wanted to stop back and say thanks to everyone for the help. This car runs great now. A little bonus is the fuel mileage has surpassed the initial 31 mpg that was normal before the malfunctions, and I now get about 34 mpg. I don't know if it's related, but I'll take it.

Kent

 

The economy sounds right for a slushbox. The hand shakers get around 38-40 mpg. Glad you got everything running right. Small problems drive me nuts. I'm in the process of dropping my trans just because I was getting about 10 drops under the car overnight.

 

34 on a DOHC on the highway sounds just right for a passive aggressive driver.
Thanks for stopping back in. Most people just take the info and run, leaving their threads hanging. Manners are apparently no longer a requirement in child rearing