What controls the temperature gauge on a 98 Chevy Malibu? The little hand...

[Minnie]

...dropped to 0 and will not move.? The temperature gauge went to 0 and did not move back up. After the gauge went to 0, the car started running hot. I just got a good used engine installed a couple of months ago. I do not want to mess the engine up. I know I got to replace the compressor. Can that be the problem? Please help me.

 

[shit_man]

it's called the temperature sending unit. The coolant temperature sensor tells the computer how to adjust the fuel/air ratio according to engine temperature.

 

[matt]

You have a temperature sending unit and a temperature sending sensor. Either the sensor came disconnected from the unit or the unit went bad.