As I waited for my son to show up, I studied the engine. I noticed that the temp sending unit was not on the intake manifold by the thermostat where I usually put it. Oh well, I thought the builder may have put it on the cylinder head. That's where the factory puts them, so no problem. The head location can sometimes read hotter than the intake location, but it will work fine.

The engine was way too hot to feel for the temp sender on the head in the tight confines of the engine bay, so I used my cell phone to snap a picture of the normal sender location on the head. I was very surprised to find that there was no temp sender there either. Ok, so where the heck is the temp sender????

I finally located it BEHIND the carb!!!!! The original builder had screwed it into the manifold runner where a vacuum port normally goes!! The sender was reading intake manifold temperature, NOT water temp!!!! That probably explains why the car is 25 years old and shows only 8500 miles. It also explains why it had a 10" electric fan installed in front of the radiator to "assist" the engine driven fan. Everybody that has owned the car probably thought it was running hot all the time and didn't drive it much. Mystery solved!

My son and I swapped the sender location with the plug that was in the correct location near the thermostat. Luckily they were the same size. When we hit the road again, the temp never got over 190 all the way home. By now though, severe weather was threatening and it was getting dark, so we spent the night in Biloxi, MS.

By morning the weather had cleared and we had an absolutely beautiful day to finish the drive home.