I just purchased my car this past summer and I had noticed a 2 pin connector unplugged and sitting on top of the air conditioning compressor. There are 4 wires bundled together. 2 go to the compressor and 2 go to this unconnected connector. It didn't seem to go to anything so I didn't think much of it, but today I was looking down on the driver side of the engine down near the spark plugs and I saw where the connector is supposed to go. Out of the side of the block, there's two prongs sticking out and they are at 90 degree angle from one another. The connector looks like it will plug right into this. What is this for?

Could be the thermal fuse??

Attached to the block or to the head ?
Can you tell the color of the wires?

the temp sender is there, do you have a temp light?

the tepm sender has only one wire. my bet is that its the TSC sensor. temperature controlled spark. it hooks to a selinoid that shuts off the vac to the dist if too cold or too hot. its probably long by now. it was a feeble attempt to control polution in the early 70's.
dick

The 72 idiot light car has a temp sender with 2 prongs on it. The 2 prongs are at a right angle to each other. Inside the temp sender there are 2 switches. One closes when hot to run the temp light. The other opens at hot and is part of the TCS system.
These 2-prong right angle temp senders are a little hard to locate these days if a new one is needed.

I looked in my repair manual under temp sending unit and yep...thats it. The manual states that if the light stays on when the engine is cool, unplug the connector to make the light go off. If it goes off, the sending unit is bad. I'm guessing its bad and they unplugged it to make the light go off. I want to put in a coolant temp gauge anyways so I'm not going to bother replacing it. Thanks for the help.

Originally posted by John_Muha:
The 72 idiot light car has a temp sender with 2 prongs on it. The 2 prongs are at a right angle to each other. Inside the temp sender there are 2 switches. One closes when hot to run the temp light. The other opens at hot and is part of the TCS system.
These 2-prong right angle temp senders are a little hard to locate these days if a new one is needed. Is there anything you don't know John? graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Originally posted by Professor_SS:
Is there anything you don't know John? graemlins/thumbsup.gif Quite a few things Rick. Just happened to buy this car new so I opened the hood one or two times.

Originally posted by John_Muha:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Professor_SS:
Is there anything you don't know John? graemlins/thumbsup.gif Quite a few things Rick. Just happened to buy this car new so I opened the hood one or two times. </font>[/QUOTE]I bought one new also and I have one now and I wouldn't have know that. But then again, you know who well anything electrical (cept computers) and I get along. You are the man... :D

Interesting little sender those 72 temp sensors are. The one in my car kept turning the "hot" light on with NO other overheating symptoms so after some very careful driving ( I was in the middle of a long trip) I started to ignore the red light. After I got home I installed an analog guage to see what the temp really was. Now I know that the car runs at 190 degrees up to 195 degrees if pushed.

I guess the temp "span" of the sending unit has sagged over the last 32 years such that 195 degrees triggers the red light. Frankly with the difficulty of getting a new sender and the absence of the TCS I am going to leave those two wires bundled up in the harness right where I put them. smile.gif