Overheating - revisited (Or how I found the temperature sending unit)

• Located temperature sending unit
  

One must understand that a car that has undergone as many upgrades as my MG has will have several loose wires, hoses, and other things leading nowhere. Because of all the upgrades its not entirely obvious what each fuse belongs too, that is after you figure out the confusion that is the stock 5 fuses that make no sense whatsoever. I can't believe the British managed to evolve to this century with this kind of horrible electrical engineering.

As such, I discovered today why the temperature gauge hasn't been doing anything. Apparently one of the loose wires under the hood is the temperature gauge wire.This explains why the engine was running ice cold all of a sudden, and the 'off the gauge' heat is probably due to the fact it was grounded somewhere, touching the alternator or some part of the body. Duhhhh. All that work for nothing!

Well, not really. The coolant was almost entirely anti-freeze, and the thermostat would have had to be replaced at some point anyway. Also I confirmed that the waterpump was OK - this is something I would have been worrying about all the time.

I reconnected the wire to the temperature sending unit, which by the way is under the thermostat housing sticking out above the alternator (no thanks to the internet here, where nobody could give me a straight answer). It's got a little contact point sticking out that should have a wire connector attached to it. See the image below for the location of the temperature sending unit (without wire connector- it broke off). This is the only picture of the thing's location on the internet.

Unless I'm completely wrong, which I highly doubt.
Correction: I just found a better image of this. Note that this picture was taken after the time of writing, and so what I said was actually correct... ;-

Refitting the cable (testing it first by touching ground to see if the temperature gauge went back to hot) I ran the engine for a while, but couldn't see any difference in temperature. I'm ordering a new temperature sending unit (about $20 on Rockauto), which I'll refit next weekend. I'm also having keys made for the locks this week. A new window winder and ignition key is in the mail already. So hopefully next weekend I'll be able to take Bonnie (it's Bonnie, screw 'Shelly') home, when she'll be fitted with some nice new tyres. That is, unless another hurricane sets me back a day.