What the flerp is this thing?

[Vhp777]

Alright, here's the deal. I was coming home from school a couple days ago and noticed a lot of smoke and that I was at a pretty high engine temp. In a nutshell, the upper heater hose bursted and I replaced it.

Now today I noticed a very small pool of coolant where I park my car. I went looking under the hood and didn't see any leaky hoses. However, I saw a small cylinder that had a small pool of coolant on top of it. I don't know if it was leaking the coolant or if somehow the hose bursting got some coolant on the cylinder. Aforementioned cylinder is located along the driver's side of the engine, below the pulleys and such. I took a picture of where it is, but it's too far down and too dark to actually see it. Here's the pic anyways:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid61/p15deaeeaf59002643d72a7d270752447/fc3a1081.jpg

Now, I was looking around down there and noticed a line coming out of the bottom of it, and the line looked almost like it housed some wiring or something electrical. Here's a picture of the bottom of the cylinder, next to the oil pan:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid61/p26337209d951daf81f344d8561a66cf8/fc3a107d.jpg

This is the line coming from the cylinder:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid61/p54e5807a1d8c6a764d44c918c32c157f/fc3a107f.jpg

The line leads toward the front of the car, into an electrical connector and comes back out and heads farther toward the front. You can see this here, with the said line being right in front, full view:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid61/p4e814784e04b01637ff4218900579b0b/fc3a107b.jpg

Now, the line going into the electrical connector seemed relatively loose. I tryed pushing it back in, but it didn't really feel like staying there. It sort of squished back out. I don't want to pull it, in fear of messing something up.

I wiped most of the coolant off of the cylinder to see later if it is, in fact coming out of there or if it was just left over from the hose the other day.

What I want to know is what the hell is that cylinder, what does it do, and what is that line coming from it for? Any help would be extremely appreciated.

 

[bobgeorge]

the wire is the oil sending unit. have you checked your oil for coolant? if you have a brownish color. to your oil. its head gasket time. a #1 problem with over heating.

 

[Vhp777]

Ugh, not good. I'll check it out.

 

[tdoshi9]

thats what i just went through. its not fun. thats prolly the worst thing that will happen. and i can almost garrantee thats what happend. good luck

 

[Vhp777]

But see, here's what I don't get. If my head gasket was effed up, wouldn't I be smelling/leaking oil and spewing out smoke all over? I don't smell anything, I see no smoke whatsoever, and I only leak a very small pool of pure coolant when I turn off my car.

 

[iisbernhard]

head gaskets can leak either oil or coolant...either into cylinders or out...just depends on where its leaking.....ive heard of ppl using stop leak junk to get by for a wihle on a leaky headgasket but if ur oil has coolant in it...change it out asap before doing damage to everything in ur engine