I'm in the process of swapping a 350 tbi from an '87 van into my LO3 '92 camaro. The 305 has a sending unit under the exhaust manifold on the passenger side head that has a wire going to it from the harness that plugs in with a little spike thing. The 350 has this blocked off with a plug. All the gages worked on the van before I tore it apart, because at first I thought it was for the temp. gage. I can't get the plug out at all to install the send. unit. Can I get away with not swapping this over? What is it for?

I'm going a/c, heater, smog delete too by the way, in case that sending unit is for the smog stuff or something.

 

Does the Camaro have 2 radiator cooling fans?
I was thinking that unit you're refering to is a temp switch used to activate the secondary (radiator) cooling fan.

 

Could be the knock sensor. Is it in the head or in the block?

 

It is a temp. sensor to tell the fans to kick on. It is not for the temp gauge. The knock sensor is located below it on the engine block itself passenger side.
POZ

 

Could I get away with not switching it over to the new engine if hooked the fan to a toggle switch? My car only has 1 fan.

 

I would not do that.

All it takes is forgetting to turn the switch on ONCE to trash your motor. Is it worth that? Do you want to add yourself to the posts we've already seen here about "I loaned my car to my wife/GF/best friend/work buddy and they didn't turn on the fan and now I've got cracked heads/blown head gasket/whatever"?

Drill the plug out, and put the sending unit in, like it belongs.

 

Well, now I've got no other option than a toggle switch. I drilled a hole in the plug and busted an ez out off in it. Hopefully it doesn't leak.

 

Pull the head off and do it right. You will regret it if you don't.

 

There's no way I'm pulling the head now, I've already got the motor and trans. back in, just gotta bolt all the crap back on it. I only paid $300 for the van that the drivetrain came out of and as bad as I'am at fixing cars, if I pull the head off there's no chance in hell my car will ever run again. Right now, I've probably got about a 40% chance of getting it running again. If not, it will go back out in the field and rust a little more till the next time I'm feeling mechanical.

 

is a cooling system pressurized? what do think the end of this story is going to be? where will you be when it happens

 

I got it running earlier today, and no leaks. I only ran it for a few minutes though. Next on the agenda is swapping out crankshaft pulleys and wiring in the fan.

 

You're gonna have to get that easy out removed from that plug. I did the same thing, except the easy out corroded away very quickly, and started leaking really bad when it was hot.

I know its a pain, but its gotta be done man