Re: thermostats for 54 Patty

Posted by HH56 On 2015/3/22 21:34:41

That total does seem a bit steep but maybe convenience is part of it. I believe but not 100% sure that company offering the item is affiliated with Kanter -- or at least they offer a lot of the same items at roughly the same prices. No idea what the housing might be -- maybe NOS or a brass or bronze repro or maybe they did one in steel and the price reflects the repro costs. Most of the original steel housings were somewhat thin and rusted fairly easily so are getting hard to find in good condition.

SoCal region of PI projects page show a bronze repro housing for $70 and another 4 or 5 for the retainer wire. If they still have them that would seem like a better deal since you can pick up a thermostat and gasket at Napa for maybe $10-15 or so.

Not sure about the fit but I would wonder if the bellows type thermostat would be the best choice on a 54 because of the relatively high pressure cap used. Whether it is a real concern I don't know, but there was one of those Model Garage stories where an overheating problem was supposedly caused by a bellows type thermostat that couldn't open. Gist of the story was the thermostat was used in a car that normally had a low pressure cap but the owner had replaced the original pressure rating with a cap of much higher rating and the increased pressure kept the bellows from operating. The cars where Packard typically used the bellows type had a 7 psi max cap so logically it makes sense because the bellows has to expand to open the thermostat. Increased pressure could conceivably keep it from expanding but no idea what the thermostat is capable of.