How to Replace Coolant Temperature Sensor 5th Gen Dodge Grand Caravan

So now that we have the coolant fully drained, we're gonna come right up here, grab onto this, I'm just gonna lift it right up, we're gonna start removing this intake area. So the next thing we're gonna do, grab onto this. And if you follow this on down, and slide that right off of there, let's remove this air inlet, you can use an eight-millimeter or a flathead, just loosen up the clamp right there. Remove that. We're gonna continue on to getting off some of this wiring and this hose up here. Just pull that straight up, set it aside, you don't wanna forget it. Grab a small pocket screwdriver to continue, I'm just gonna push in on the tab and then draw it off. Some of these have a little red tab, I'll show you it and that's actually a lock if you look right here that was pressed, I just kind of popped it up, and it unlocks it, so drawing that away. And these are just little clips that hold on to the plastic, get this one little red lock on it. There it is.

These right here are just little push tabs, you can try to use something as simple as a forky tool and try to pry it out of there which is what I'm gonna do. I wanna be careful not to break the plastic on the intake, of course. I'm just gonna see about giving that a little push. Awesome. Okay. So I can see there's a mounting nut for a bracket, that's right back here along the intake, we're gonna need to make sure we get that off as well, but let's continue on checking for hoses first. There's this hose that goes to the brake booster right along the backside. That's where the brake booster gets backing from the engine, we need to get that off of there.

Now, we don't wanna forget about this bracket back here. But first, we're gonna come along here to the front, get this. You can either disconnect it right here or just pop it up and out of there. I have the fork tool out so I can see up along the front. There's another mounting nut there and another mounting nut up here that hold the intake down so we're gonna pay attention to those. As far as I can tell, everything that needs to be disconnected should be disconnected so let's start taking off the mounting hardware. You got your two front nuts, one right there, one located right there, 10-millimeter, get them both off of there.

There's the two fronts. Now that we have the top nuts loose on there taken off, I'm just gonna get this wire off of there. It's gonna pop out, the same over here. There it is, so I can pull the wire away from the brackets and that looks pretty great. Now we're gonna remove the nuts that hold the bottom portion of the bracket. If you look down along in between these brackets, you're gonna see this aluminum looking tube. That's actually a coolant tube, and it's mounted to this bracket. So I'm gonna use a 13-millimeter ratchet wrench, I'm gonna come down through here and get right on this mounting nut. Okay. And that's holding, like I said, this tube to the metal bracket. There's the nut, I'll set that aside so we don't lose it. I should be able to grab this tube move it around. Awesome.

At that point, now I can see over here. I can see that 13-millimeter nut, we can get that one off as well. Let's see if I can move this far enough to get it off of there. Okay. So that's off pretty decent amount. We just need it to be far enough to get our 13-millimeter wrench on there to get the nut off. Seems like it's turning the whole stud. And that's okay. I'm all right, with that. There we go, get that one out of there. There's the bracket and our bolt. Now we're just gonna do the same to the other side. It might be better to do this one from underneath.

Now that we have the two nuts off on the top, we're just gonna follow this down. We're gonna be removing the bracket so of course I'm gonna get the wiring off of there, but I wanna point out where the other bolts are. It's gonna be one, let's see if I can get this stuff moved. Okay. Right down here. Okay. So next I'm gonna come along the top here, you have a little pushpin. It's a little hard to get to with some cotters or anything like that or even a tool that you'd normally pull them out with so I went ahead and grabbed something that looked like this. I'm just gonna grab onto that center, just like that, lift up on the center, it should draw it right out. Set that up there. At this point, we can give this a little wiggle, starting to feel pretty good. Let's kind of lift up, push back here it comes. There we are.

So next, let's start taking out all these mounting bolts using an eight-millimeter, you wanna do that starting on one side and working your way over to the other. Before we go too much further, we wanna make sure we have something to cover up this engine, and I'll show you why. Let's carefully lift up on this. Okay. Still got a bolt that's a little bit in there. There we go.

So now that we have that upper portion of the intake off, it's important to remember that the engine's wide open at this point. If you were to drop anything inside these holes, something as small as maybe a bolt or a nut, or even just a small piece of debris that you happen to knock off into there, it's gonna cause an issue inside of your engine. So let's move along. I'm gonna carefully lift this up, get this out of the way. Now that we have the upper intake off, we're gonna start removing these clips that go into the fuel injectors, you lift up on the red tab. Once you do that, you can press on the black, and then draw these right off. Take a peek at the connector it looks great, move along, do the same to all six.

So now it's time to remove the mounting bolts for the lower intake and what I mean by that is all these bolts that run along there. Start on an outside or on a corner. So now when we lift this up, it's important to remember that we have these holes up here, but we're also gonna have holes that are underneath there that actually go into the engine a little deeper down. So as we lift this up, if there's any crud that might be laying on top of the engine or around the edges there, there's a potential that it could fall into the engine. So just pay attention for that, and if it does, we'll just make sure we clean it out the best we can. We're gonna get this. Just gonna pull this up out of the way a little bit just like that. If you wanted to, you could of course remove this fully from the vehicle, I didn't wanna disconnect the fuel line, you can if you want, it might just make a little bit more of a mess.

So if you look all along here, you can see where the gasket is supposed to ride, there's a lot of crud. We're gonna need to make sure we clean that up, and when we do, be careful not to force it down into where the valves are, that will become a major issue. I'm gonna grab a vacuum, a razor blade, maybe a scraper, and some nice clean rags.

Now that the intake is off, we've got it nice and cleaned up. Let's continue on. We found our ECT sensor right here. Looks like that. We're gonna lift up on this red tab, that's the lock, we're gonna squeeze this and draw that off. Use a 19-millimeter socket with a ratchet, maybe an extension if you got one. Okay. Before I go too far, I just wanna show you when you look at this CTC sensor, you can tell that it's not actually fully screwed down so it's bottomed out. If you were to look at the threads on the one that's in there, it's pretty much screwed in to just about where that red stops, it's not all the way up to this portion right there. Okay. So when we screw this new one in, we're not gonna go all the way to the point that it bottoms out, we're just gonna go to the end of the red maybe leaving one thread or two sticking above.

There it is. Get your new sensor, go and start it in there by hand, make sure it's threading in right. Okay. Looks like I'm getting up close to the top of that red. I can still see a little bit of red so I'm gonna go maybe another turn or two here. That looks perfect. Get that connector on there. Make sure you press down on the red to lock it in. Give it a tug. So now it's gonna be time to get the gaskets off of this but before I do that, I'm just gonna put this down to cover all the holes that lead down into the engine. At this point, we're gonna continue on by removing the gaskets on this side of the intake and also the gaskets on this side of the intake. Once we've done that, we're gonna try to just clean this out a little bit as much as we can make sure there's no raised areas, reinstall new gaskets on all these ports, and then we'll continue with the install. So let's start here. This whole gasket looks like it's still good, it's not dry and brittle. I like to replace him anyways. Got a brand new one here. Slide it right in there, we're gonna continue on to all the rest. Nice. All right, let's do the other side. It's not horrible. I'm just gonna clean this up with a rag. Get all along here where the gasket's gonna ride, grab our new gasket, slide it right in there just like that.

Now we're gonna do the same right down the line. Look at that, just from turning over the intake, look at how much crud would have just fallen into the engine. Get all those gaskets on there. Get as much sand out of this thing as possible. Carefully lift this up and out of here. Just like that, you can see how much crud's in there. To continue on with crud patrol. I'm just gonna use this and just kind of put a little bit of air inside these cylinders. I just wanna see if any large chunks of anything come flying out.

Let's wipe down these mating areas where those gaskets are gonna ride, make sure they're nice and clean. We wanna double-check to make sure there's no raised areas anywhere. This is very important. This feels really good, super smooth, nice and clean. All right. Let's grab that intake one more time. I'm just gonna use a little bit of lubricant. It's good to use a little bit of oil especially if you have some new oil laying around. Just spread it around on these gaskets. Yep, and this is also a perfect time to make sure you're pressing down on those gaskets. So they're definitely gonna be ready to go. Let's get this down. Give special attention to if any gasket falls out while you're doing this. This is looking great. Yeah, nice. The fuel injector plug is out of there, it's gonna sit right down. Oh yeah, this is perfect.

Okay. Now I'm gonna start in all the bolts give them all a couple of threads before I tighten anything down. Awesome. Okay, now let's bottom out the bolts, we're gonna do it in this specific order so pay attention. Now it's time to bottom these out. I'm just gonna do it very lightly, but I'm gonna do it in a specific order. Number one, over here in this corner. Number two. Number three is right here. Four. Five. Six is right here. Number seven. Number eight, locate it right there. Awesome, let's torque it down. So now it's time to torque these. We're gonna do it in the same order starting with number one over here. Using our 8-millimeter torque them to 106 inch-pounds. Those are all torqued. Let's move along.

Next, we're gonna move along to connecting in these fuel injectors. Just grab the connector, you're gonna press it right down on there, press down on the red so it's locked in, and give it a tug. Do the same to all six.

Continuing on, I've got my oiled finger here. I'm just gonna go over these gaskets. Of course, I'm using fresh oil, it's super important. Let's grab this little foam insert. Just put it here. It's kind of like an insulation barrier. Got our upper intake. Make sure you clean up all these ported areas. If there's any raised areas that you feel might be a problem, you could take a nice smooth razor blade and just kind of smoothen them down, but there really shouldn't be any issue areas where this is just plastic. That's nice. Carefully put this up and over here. Gonna bring it down and I'm just gonna try to line up those spots. It's approximate and a little further, so right about there. Wiggle it so the bolts drop down, that means they're into their spots. Awesome. Now it's time to snug up these bolts, we're gonna do it very lightly because we're gonna be screwing these into plastic and the torque specification forum, believe it or not, is actually very low. We'll get to that in a minute. Start right over here with number one. Number two, you're gonna come all the way over here. Number three, number four, number five, number six, and number seven.

Now it's time to torque these down, we're gonna torque them to 89 inch-pounds. Let's install that driver side bracket just right along here. It's gonna go over that stud and that's stud then once you have it over, just grab that bolt. I'm gonna start it in, and then I'm gonna start those other two nuts, and then we'll snug them down. Awesome. Grab your 13 and tighten this up. Okay, it's bottomed out. Tighten it a bit more, it feels great. Make sure you put the wiring harness back on here so it's nice and secure. We've got this one, slides in there. Don't forget your 10-millimeter nuts, we're gonna snug those up as well. Okay. It's bottomed out, just a teeny bit more. Obviously, I don't wanna break the plastic intake. Okay, it's bottomed out, a tiny bit more. we've got wiring here and this goes in there. You got the small connector out all these. Here we go. Right in here. Okay, pushing that lock tab, give it a nice tug. Don't forget to put this on here, that's what holds it. Very nice.

We've got this rubber hose, it goes right on the backside here, you can feel a little piston come out of there, go ahead and then put that on. If you forget that you're not gonna have vacuum going to the brake booster so your brake pedal is gonna feel very tight. I'm gonna grab this one. That has to come around through here so I'm just gonna get this out of the way again. There it is. Put that in and then, of course, just put this back inside there. Okay, this is all nice and secure, we're doing all right. We've got this one, you need that as well. That's vacuum as well. All right, we're gonna leave this just like that. At this point, we're gonna grab our air intake. We've got this right here, that's the air temp sensor. We're gonna come right under here, just try to sneak it in. And then if you look down along the engine, in the bottom of the intake, you can see those little pistons, they need to go into those little rubber grommets. At the same time as that's happening, we need to be bringing this part down onto this part of the intake. So there's multiple things that have to happen all at the same time. Give it a press and twist and it should wanna pop right in there. Oh, yeah. Nice.

We have our push clip. When we push this in, grab from here. Once it's all the way bottomed out, push in the center just like that. Perfect. All right, let's continue on with this wiring. And then connect this one in, air temp sensor. Give it a tug. Now make sure you anchor it down, super important to make sure nothing's flopping around as much as possible. Let's get this back on here. You can either snug this up with an eight-millimeter or a flathead screwdriver.

So now we have this hole right up here. We need to make sure that we close that up using this tube. Go ahead and insert that on this end. Comes right across the top and then it's gonna plug in right here. Squeeze it right in there, that should sit right along the top, everything looks great. Let's move along towards the front of the engine. Now it's time to get the bracket in. Start with the passenger side because the driver's side has an extra bracket that's gonna hold a coolant tube and that's gonna be in the way. I'm gonna start right up here, we have our little stud, put my bracket down and through.

Okay. I'm gonna start this nut on here. Now I'm gonna go underneath and I'm gonna stud in the other one. While I'm down there, I'll just go ahead and snug it up and then I'll do the top portion again later. I'm gonna go ahead and snug that right up. I'm gonna make sure that this is nice and tight. Nice. Snug up that top nut. Now this is mounted only into plastic so you only need to bottom it out and give it a teeny bit more and that's perfect. Let's do the same to the other bracket. So we're gonna do the bracket that's on the driver's side now. I've got my bolt going through like this, you've got the washer side going up right up against the bracket, this is gonna go into the engine. This portion right here is gonna sit right on this stud that's located right underneath the intake and in between, we have that cooler line, that's very important to remember, it has to go in between the engine and the cooler line and it's spun around here. Going the wrong way, that's good. All right. So I've got the upper portion of the bracket on there, let's see if I can get a nut on before it falls off. Awesome.

Okay. So now it's gonna be the tricky part, I need to get that bolt in through the bracket and then into the engine and tightened and then I need to put that bracket that's part of the coolant line over it and then put a nut on top of that. The problem is the bracket that holds the coolant line onto here is pretty much hanging out right over this. So to get it in, and in between there it's just gonna be a tight squeeze. Try to wiggle it around, let's see what I can do to get the most space. All right, I'm just gonna snug this right up. Nice. Let's get that top nut. Okay, it's bottomed out. A tiny bit me more.

So now we need to get the bracket for the coolant line over that bolt that we just put on the intake around the engine. Come on, there it is. Grab that 13-millimeter nut and go ahead and put that on. All right. So it just bottomed out right there. I'm just gonna give it that teeny bit more. Perfect. Let's just get this down so we're gonna re-put it in there. That feels great. Double-check everything. Just go around, make sure everything's definitely connected in, we didn't forget anything. This looks good. Let's continue. Let's make sure that the picaxe is nice and closed. Perfect. Of course, we're gonna clean up our mess when we're done.

The next thing I wanna do is test the pressure of the cooling system, make sure that holds vacuum. So I'm just gonna use this kit right here and what it's gonna do is it's gonna force air through here, rush it right by, create vacuum inside the cooling system. You're gonna see the hoses start to crush down or collapse and we're gonna watch this needle go all the way up into the green. It has to go past the 25, anywhere in between the 25 and 30 is great, and then it has to stop. Once it stops, I'm gonna close off the vacuum, turn off the air, and we're gonna make sure that that needle doesn't go dropping into the yellow or even worse the red.

So that's gonna hold in pressure right there for a while now so I'm just gonna take this off. We're gonna take a 5, 10-minute break here, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna see if this drops down below that 25. So now you just use your manufacturer-specified coolant, or if you wanna use a universal coolant of some sort, you can do that, you just need to make sure that it meets the specifications required by the manufacturer. This is gonna fill the system using the vacuum that's inside of there, you're gonna see this hose right here is gonna expand back to its regular size.

All right. Now that I've got that as full as it's gonna go, I'm gonna go ahead and put this adapter on here. I've got a nice funnel with a stopper, I'm gonna put in some of this coolant. Now this is gonna burp out any air that might be still left in the system. The way that you do that is you're gonna start up the vehicle and run it for a little while. As it runs, the coolant is gonna heat up to the right temperature where the thermostat is gonna open up. Once it opens, more than likely it's gonna end up pushing through any air that's inside this system and it's gonna come out the highest point which of course would be here. As air comes out coolant is gonna make its way in and it's gonna fill up just the way it should.

So let's get the engine cover on here. See these little grommets? Those are gonna line up with these pistons. Okay, we got them all over the top there. Just lining up, there it is. Okay. So we made it inside the vehicle, we're gonna start up the vehicle. You're gonna put your heat all the way on high. We're gonna face there, and then go ahead and crank it up. At this point, you could pay attention to the dash. And that's where your temperature gauge is. Obviously, if it starts making its way all the way up into the red, there's gonna be an issue. I'd like for it to come up into the middle, maybe a little bit above that should be about where the thermostat is going to be. At about three quarters, it's gonna open up, you're gonna see a drop back down again.

All right. So we ran this for a long period of time, we got all the air out of the cooling system, we're sure of it. Awesome. Next, I'm just gonna grab this coolant hose, it's gonna be a little warm I'm gonna give it a squeeze and then I'm gonna push this down in there. What that's gonna do is it's gonna give me a little bit of slack where it's gonna draw the coolant down and hopefully spill less. There we are. At this point, you can either take your leftover coolant and put it in your reservoir. If you haven't already replaced the coolant inside there, it's a good idea to. That's already full so I'm just gonna go right in here and I'll recycle it later. Get that adapter off of there. We have our cap, go ahead and close that up so it's completely tight. Perfect. We'll just double-check everything. If you left anything loose, make sure it's covered. Go ahead and take her for a road test.