natural resiliency of the strap 14 material enables the tabs 26 to assume their original position as thus described the locking means 24 automatically engages the protector 9 upon protector 9 placement in the well 19 while simultaneously permitting easy removal of the protector the one step insertion locking feature is particularly helpful to original equipment manufacture in that the time consuming procedure for holding protectors prevalent in prior art thermostat strap designs is eliminated the strap 14 also has a pair of legs 29 and 30 respectively integrally formed along the bottom edge of the wing pair 20 and 21 bottom being referenced to fig5 the legs 29 and 30 shown are triangular in plan having a pointed lower end 31 and a broad base 32 integrally constructed with the wings other leg designs will occur to those skilled in the art the ends 31 of each of the legs 29 and 30 are spaced from one another for a distance 33 which generally is predeterminedly selected so that the distance 33 corresponds to the distance between respective ones of successive pairs of the openings 6 in the core 1 the legs 29 and 30 are designed so as to permit them to enter the openings 6 in the core when the strap 14 is placed in the stator assembly 2 once the legs 29 and 30 enter the openings 6 they.