Just what is the correct thermostat for these? I bought one the other day for a Triumph 1147 thinking it'd fit and be the right one. However it dosn't fit. It seems to tall. I noticed that Gord Souter sells a Thermostat kit New style new spacer. Is this what people are using. If not what one works with the stock motor?


        
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GORDON IMPORTS INC.. The world's largest source of Amphicar parts and accessories. Visit our new website today.

Triumph originally used a bellows type thermostat, this allowed space on top for sensor. The bellows thermostat is OK but not very accurate and if it fails it fails shut so engine overheats.

Mid 60s they changed to a wax thermostat. Simpler and cheaper, should be more reliable but importantly it fails open. Downside is there is no clearance for sensor on top. Triumph moved sensor to side of water pump housing to fix this.

So, options are find an original thermostat (now rare) use a later Triumph pump housing (rare in US but what everyone would do in Euro Land) or use some sort of spacer - never done that so don't know how well it would work or if it might cause other probs.

David C
(first email post to new list)
----- Original Message -----
From: SNKR770
To: DavidC
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 8:29 PM
Subject: [General Amphicar Discussion-t-4600] Amphicar Thermostats?


Just what is the correct thermostat for these? I bought one the other day for a Triumph 1147 thinking it'd fit and be the right one. However it dosn't fit. It seems to tall. I noticed that Gord Souter sells a Thermostat kit New style new spacer. Is this what people are using. If not what one works with the stock motor?


        
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GORDON IMPORTS INC.. The world's largest source of Amphicar parts and accessories. Visit our new website today.

Disclaimer: I could be utterly wrong. Even reading this is putting your car in severe peril. Seriously, go check and make sure its not on fire.

That said, Victoria British appears to carry replacement water pump housings that do what DavidC describes:

http://www.victoriabritish.com/icatalog/sg/0077.asp
Part # 2-157

Just from the (very tiny) drawing on their site, it looks like it might work. Has anyone tried this?


        
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GORDON IMPORTS INC.. The world's largest source of Amphicar parts and accessories. Visit our new website today.

Yep, that is the part - but whoah big price ! It says Aluminium next to it, the originals were cast iron so maybe it has been remade by them. The Amphicar sender has the same thread as the Triumph one that screws in the side so no problem there.

I'm pretty sure that part in cast iron didn't change right through to the mid 70s Spitfires so they may not be that difficult to find however check carefully as there was all sorts of wierdness with the cooling of US spec Spitfires in later years mostly related to keeping the temp up after a cold start to try and keep emissions down.

David C
(This means the first post by email must have worked !)

----- Original Message -----
From: PeterP
To: DavidC
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 3:04 AM
Subject: [General Amphicar Discussion-t-4600] RE: Amphicar Thermostats?


Disclaimer: I could be utterly wrong. Even reading this is putting your car in severe peril. Seriously, go check and make sure its not on fire.

That said, Victoria British appears to carry replacement water pump housings that do what DavidC describes:

http://www.victoriabritish.com/icatalog/sg/0077.asp
Part # 2-157

Just from the (very tiny) drawing on their site, it looks like it might work. Has anyone tried this?


        
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GORDON IMPORTS INC.. The world's largest source of Amphicar parts and accessories. Visit our new website today.

Yeah, it looks like in a Spitfire, the weight savings of the aluminum version might be worthwhile. On the Amphicar, not so much.


        
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GORDON IMPORTS INC.. The world's largest source of Amphicar parts and accessories. Visit our new website today.