So recently I had to do a head gasket replacement on the L18 in my girlfriend's 180B. In the process of the uninstall and reinstall of everything the wiring coming from the thermostat housing has become damaged and broken off. I highlighted the part in question. There were two wires coming out. One going to ground and the other into the wiring harness. I thought the stuff around them at the top was solder and so I stripped the old wires back and went to resolder them to their terminals. The stuff isn't solder though. I think it's some kind of rubber? Didn't smell great when I chewed into it with the soldering iron though. Can anyone give me advice on what I should do to fix this? Do I need to purchase a new terminal section with the wires already in it (I noticed it is a screw in fitting into the housing) or is there a way for me to reattach the old wires?

Cheers.

Jimmy.

I think the wires are moulded onto the sender to seal out water and corrosion.
If you are very carefull you may be able to scrape away the epoxy or what ever it is and also the wire coating so you can solder onto the broken wire itself or where the wire is normally attached to from factory.
After you have soldered the wire try and heatshrink both wires and then reseal the joint again with silicon or araldyte...

Thanks for the tips. I gave it a good shot but it was an absolute mess in there and couldn't even get the wire separated enough without damaging it further. Oddly enough in my oldschool manual it doesn't even show a second sensor coming out of the thermostat housing. I thought they might be for running a cooling fan but I don't have one of those, only the standard fan that runs off the water pump. The heat sending sensor is the single point terminal that is next to the highlighted one in question and the car runs without this sensor wired in. So confused!

Just checked one of my workshop manuals and it is indeed a temperature switch.
Apparently it keeps the ignition timing of the dizzy at the optimum setting until the engine is up to temp.
Once the engine is warm it then uses the throttle switch (set at 40degrees of throttle open) to retard the timing and improve fuel consumption when youre not WOT.
It does this timing adjustment in the dizzy by using two points instead of one.
It changes over from using one breaker point to the other breaker point which changes the timing 6degrees...