Saturn Repair: location of crankshaft position sensor, crankshaft position sensor, small screws

Question
ses light came on my 96 saturn sl2. Autozone says that the crankshaft position sensor is bad. I have a haynes repair manual, but still, I cannot find the sensor. Are you able to describe to me the location of the sensor  

Answer
Hi Brad,
The Crank angle position sensor very rarely goes bad...very rarely!
The sensor is located on the engine, below the head the near the firewall.  It is hard to get to!  You get to it from under the car as the intake manifold totally blocks access to it from the top. The sensor causes the check engine light to come on it if the air gap between the sensor and the crankshaft becomes too great or too tight. The Sensor itself probably is not the problem. There will be an electrical connector going into the end of the sensor and the other end goes into the engine block.  It should be held in by two small screws BUT every year of Saturn engine has a slightly different (electrically and physically) Crank Angle Sensor.  My current Saturn SL2 engine is a different year than the car and I had to swap out the senor from the old engine into the new engine so that the electrical connector would fit...the engine runs great but the check engine comes on every time I drive it and when I had Saturn reset the code error it triggered, it came back on within 5 miles...it is not a problem but it is annoying!

Thanks for asking
Greg Moore
www.taylorgolfsupply.com