In a message dated 98-08-04 13:41:22 EDT, ARhodes@compuserve.com writes:
> Hey, thanks for this info. I hope I am not in need of a new 'stat, but
> your conversation had gotten me thinking. It would appear at first
> glance to be fairly easy to retrofit a skirt to a standard 'stat. I am
> not at all sure that it would end up costing LESS than the $27 price
> you mentioned. The cost of production would be much less, but with
> a middle-man or two, the price would double or quadruple. I guess
> that the $27 item might cost less than $7 to produce. It would be
> hard to beat that. I hope I am wrong about the marketing issues,
> but I bet my mark-up estimate is conservative.
>
Tony, Jack Brooks and I went through this whole drill about a year ago. In
addition to the Jag thermostat which Jack tested, I found that there were
several other skirted thermostats available for various VW and Volvo models.
I offered at that time to check those thermostats' dimensions against a
Triumph original skirted thermostat for 4cylinder TR engines. But no-one on
the list had one to loan me for an analysis test. Since I was underwhelmed
with offers I decided that the interest was not there and so let the project
drop.
I still have the part numbers for those Volvo and VW thermostats. They look
very similar to ours and might even be the same. However, they would need to
be compared to see if the dimensions (overall and skirt) are the same and if
they would: 1) fit into a TR2/3/4/4A cooling system and 2) operate so as to
close the coolant bypass tube. Cheers.
Art Kelly
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