Holy grail item

[72Hardtop]

Received my new thermostat from volkaholic (Mr. Awesome Powdercoat) yesterday. First impressions are very positive. This thing is quite pretty. Whatever company he is farming out the assembly to has clearly invested in some modern welding/brazing gear. It's a step above the old style of soldered plates used by Wahler

DSCN3606.JPG

Although the thermostat itself is quite nice, there are a couple of attachment issues that will need to be taken care of. The bar stock that was used for the cable nut is ever-so-slightly larger than the stock cable nut, and it turns out that the pilot hole in the thermostat bracket for the cable nut is quite a close fit to the original nut. So tight that the new nut won't fit. Nothing that some judicious filing can't remedy.

So why not use the stock nut from the old thermostat? Well, acccording to volkaholic, it seems that VW used at least three thread sizes for the thermostat cable attachment: M7x.7, M7x1 and M6x1, Volkaholic has settled on the M7x1 thread size, but my old thermostat has the M7x.7 thread, so I'm stuck with the new oversized nut.

Another fitment issue is the depth of the thread bore on the thermostat mounting hole. The old Wahler thermostat has nearly an inch of thread in the bore, but the Awesome thermostat has less than half that. The depth of the bore is about 5/8", but the amount of thread engagement is only about 3/8". I think a little work with a bottoming tap will be needed to get a reasonable amount of thread engagement.

Aside from those little details, I'm tickled pink about this new thermostat. And on inspection of my old one, I think I can actually fix it as per Ratwell's thermostat repair instructions.

It's been a good day.

And, umm, how would I go about attaching more than one picture to a post?

The issue with the mounting bolt depth can be solved by placing the bracket washer between the mounting bolt and bracket as opposed to placing it between the bracket and thermostat.

[SlowLane]

Another fitment issue is the depth of the thread bore on the thermostat mounting hole. The old Wahler thermostat has nearly an inch of thread in the bore, but the Awesome thermostat has less than half that. The depth of the bore is about 5/8", but the amount of thread engagement is only about 3/8". I think a little work with a bottoming tap will be needed to get a reasonable amount of thread engagement.

The issue with the mounting bolt depth can be solved by placing the bracket washer between the mounting bolt and bracket as opposed to placing it between the bracket and thermostat.

Judging by every drawing I've seen of the assembly, I believe the correct bracket washer mounting is as you have it now, with the washer outside the bracket, although the drawing in the Vanagon Bentley is a bit ambiguous. I never would have considered putting it between the bracket and thermostat.

Not sure how the washer location would have any bearing on how deep the bolt goes, though. The shim stack height will be the same regardless of where you put the bracket washer, unless you added another washer on top of the normal two (ie. bracket plus round washer). I'm pretty sure I'll need to run a bottoming tap down there to get enough thread bite.

Good to hear that your Awesome thermostat works as expected. I'm waiting on an order from Bus Boys for a new bracket washer. I never had a genuine VW one, but had home-made one with a file last time I assembled my engine.

Oh, did you have to open up the hole in your bracket to accomodate the larger cable nut supplied with the Awesome thermostat?

[72Hardtop]

Another fitment issue is the depth of the thread bore on the thermostat mounting hole. The old Wahler thermostat has nearly an inch of thread in the bore, but the Awesome thermostat has less than half that. The depth of the bore is about 5/8", but the amount of thread engagement is only about 3/8". I think a little work with a bottoming tap will be needed to get a reasonable amount of thread engagement.

The issue with the mounting bolt depth can be solved by placing the bracket washer between the mounting bolt and bracket as opposed to placing it between the bracket and thermostat.

Judging by every drawing I've seen of the assembly, I believe the correct bracket washer mounting is as you have it now, with the washer outside the bracket, although the drawing in the Vanagon Bentley is a bit ambiguous. I never would have considered putting it between the bracket and thermostat.

Not sure how the washer location would have any bearing on how deep the bolt goes, though. The shim stack height will be the same regardless of where you put the bracket washer, unless you added another washer on top of the normal two (ie. bracket plus round washer). I'm pretty sure I'll need to run a bottoming tap down there to get enough thread bite.

Good to hear that your Awesome thermostat works as expected. I'm waiting on an order from Bus Boys for a new bracket washer. I never had a genuine VW one, but had home-made one with a file last time I assembled my engine.

Oh, did you have to open up the hole in your bracket to accomodate the larger cable nut supplied with the Awesome thermostat?

I needed to alter the placement of the rectangular washer so it would allow the T-stat to open fully. Looking closely at the Wahler stat I noticed the mounting side was slightly different then the new T-stat. Enough so that it would not allow the thermostat to fully open if I placed the rectangular washer as it was originally installed. Placing the rectangular washer on the outside of the bracket allowed the new T-stat to sit further into the mounting hole, positioning it further away from the opposite end of the bracket.

As for my bracket it's the original bracket and open on one side and closed on the other. No adjustment was required.