[quote="clm2112"]The fitting on the radiator for the sensor is a common Pipe plug fitting, but there is no harm done leaving it in. In fact, you can even rig it up on the instrument panel to activate the appropriate idiot light on the dash with very little work.




how would i do this to get it working.?

Black fluid is not your friend. I've had several friends of mine complain of whining while turning and 9 times out of 10 its just old or low PS fluid. My rack was whining a little and I sucked out the old fluid and put in some fresh stuff with "rejuvinator" of some sort and now its working as it should be.

It should be an on/off switch. When the coolant level in the radiator drops below the sensor, the switch inside it closes. (You can check this with a volt meter on the continuity setting. If it'* only got one terminal on the sensor, the check continuity with the ground.)

Find the radiator idiot light on the instrument panel (you probably have it on the little pictograph of the car, there just isn't a light bulb in the socket behind the picture). Trace down which pin on the IP connector and run a wire up to the sensor on the radiator. I did a thread a year or two ago showing taking apart a 1990 instrument panel...if you can find it, you can get a look at how the panel goes together and the multi-pin harness connector in the dash it plugs into.

thanks i will be searching it up now.. let you no if i find it or not..

Wow, this has turned into a horribly complicated problem regarding the coolant level sensor. I thought it was just an idiot light on the RPO U50 panel.

I went digging through the 90 Bonneville service manual and finally found a page regarding this sensor. It'* not a simple ON/OFF switch. It'* only on an SSE with a DIC module in the dash. The actual probe in the radiator is a resistor that changes from over 50Kohm when the probe is dry, to under 10Kohm when it is wet with coolant. In order to make this work, you would also need the low coolant module the probe was connected to, which in turn can operate a lamp (or feed a signal to the DIC module to display it the way GM designed it.)

Pipe plug is sounding better all the time

i have a 88 sse. or is it just the 90 sse that has that sensor there.
i mean pipe plug