NOT the breather hose, the crispy sensor(?) underneath it. what's it do and how do i replace it. snip the wire from a junkyard piece and splice it in there?

 

This looks like Engine Coolant Temperature Sensor to me. It's mounted on the coolant hose/pipe, right?

 

yes it is mounted there. seems that pointed me in the right direction. according to this video the ECTS is the one behind it, the burnt one "just sends the signal to your gauge cluster for the piece of crap they call a temperature gauge"


thanks for getting me going the right direction

 

if that's true and it doesn't feed the ECU temp, which i think it does, you could install your own temp gauge.

 

If you have the 3.0 engine, you have 2 temperature senders that are next to each other. The one closest to the radiator hose has one wire on it and is for the temperature gauge in the instrument cluster. It is used for nothing else. You could take it out and the car would never know the difference.

The other temperature sensor is the ECTS and has 2 wires on it. This is used by the ECU for controlling the radiator fans, how much fuel to inject and probably other things.

You can replace the sender without draining the engine. When you have the old one unscrewed, have the new one ready to pop in when you remove the old one. Very little coolant loss that way.

 

well it turns out what i thought was a burnt and melted mess was just dirty. hahaha, what a dumbass OP is

 

We all have Dumbass moments.