ok, so I swapped cars with my wife the other day so I could change her oil, and her 99 cougar, 2.5l v6 overheated after just 5 min on the road. I pulled over to find it was bone dry, did a temp will with cold water so I could drive .5 miles to buy coolant. after letting the car sit for an hour, then filling it up, it (as I expected) overheated again on the way home. I assumed it was just an air pocket from the quickie fill I gave it, so no big surprise.

After getting it home, I drained it, flushed the radiator, refilled, 'burped' it, and went on with the rest of my day (the oil had another 300 miles left that it could wait). Well, that didn't solve the problem. It still overheats, so I took it to autozone, they scanned it (CEL is constantly on) and it gave 2 codes, 1 for the thermostat, and 1 for the ECT sensor. The thermostat was easy so I did that first; however, the ECT sensor is where I'm having an issue.

The sensor I pulled out of it has a single wire running out of it, going straight down into a harness (its really crampt so i think thats where its running) and i can see where the wire has been cut and heat shrunk to a new wire running to the sensor. Well, everywhere I went to buy a new sensor is telling me that the one I pulled out is not a match for the engine, all the replacements they show have a 2 prong plug, and my wiring should have a matching plug on the end, which it doesn't. So, whats the best way to approach this? I don't know how to make a (and connect) a 2 prong female plug to a single wire, so that I can then install the new sensor.

Lastly, I included the whole story above because i noticed that neither my heat or AC work, and i don't think that changing the ECT sensor will fix them, so what other issues could I be looking at? The fan works, it just always outside temp air, never hot or cold.

I have pictures of the old and new sensor if they would help.

 

oh, i forgot to mention, I changed the plugs, #3 showed very mild signs of burning coolant, not enough for me to think its a blown head gasket, the other 5 were clean. (extremely old though, probably had 115k on them)

 

I would try cleaning the old one to start with but it coule be a swap to get a better read if you really wanna change it it shouldn't be overly difficult just trace the wire thats there and find the old wires from the original sensor, its gonna be there somewhere, guaranteed. then just splice some wires into it and get a new connector.

 

as for the coolant thing, could be an intake manifold gasket.