Ok, so I'm either a lot dumber than I thought I was, or I've had some pretty bad luck lately.

When I built my engine (mid-march '06), I put in a "Fail-safe" thermostat made by Murray (sp?). My aftermarket temp gauge always read low, but I figured it was just the gauge going bad and didn't worry about it. Well, cold weather came around, and I noticed I didn't have any heat so I pulled the stat and found it stuck open, at which time I replaced under warranty with an identical part. (This was ~November '06.) Well, I just drove about four hours in 20 degree temperatures, and guess what... no heat again.

Now, before I pull this one and replace it /again/, I'm trying to figure out if I'm doing something wrong here. When I'm installing it, I'm putting the "chunky" end of it in the head and the "flat" side of it towards the water neck. Is that the correct way?

If that's the correct orientation, I'm giving up on the failsafes and going back to a standard stat. I've never had a problem with those....

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Used to own:
'82 Dodge D150
Erson 270 Cam, O/S valves, mild port work, ~9.5:1 compression

Currently fighting with an '85 VW Cabriolet

My other passion

I've had the luck of a toilet with thermostats of all brands. How such an important device can be designed to fail un-safe is beyond me when another $1.00 worth of parts would fix it like a 270 degree melting point sealed bypass.
I doped out a housing for 2 in parallel - both working together closes up the temperature range nicely (high flow immediately on reaching the temp), and the odds are excellent that only 1 will fail at a time, therefore it will always work.

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panic, any chance of getting a pic of that? sounds like a cool idea.

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Excuse me, does this smell like chloroform to you?

Indeed, Panic, your idea sounds great I just can´t get my engine in normal temp range, always in cold range.

I´ve tried many ´stats range with my 4-blade fan, and no good results, always in cold range, some times at max cold range, but not normal range.

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Mopar Muscle is well defend by Slant Six!

Valiant Duster 1971

I've had a recurring problem with my thermostat.

Doesn't happen often, but it does get stuck open. It will occur after a long high speed run on the highway (usually after going up a hill), and I find the culprit as a tiny piece of sand that gets jammed in the plunger area of the thermostat. Clean the thermostat and it's fine..... (BTW, I made a rubber gasket from an old inner tube to help with the removal, clean, reinstall.....)

Car currently has 19000 miles (was grandparents and I got it with 12000 miles). I think that I'm driving it harder than it ever was driven, and with the high speed up hill run, there's enough coolant flow (wide open thermostat going up hill) and turbulence to kick up sand residue left in the block. (Which flushing probably didn't pick up because there wasn't enough flow).

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Two words:

Stant SuperStat.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Where I can find those Dan?, and the seller must be able to send to Mexico.

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Mopar Muscle is well defend by Slant Six!

Valiant Duster 1971

Dan, I have to agree. They are what I have used lately. In the past I had nothing but trouble with stants and total success with Robert Shaw, usually the balanced style but even the cheap ones. With any of them I would check them first and see what range they really operate at. I used a 160 Superstat in our slant just because of the long trip home last august in 100 plus weather and wanted a little head start when pulling hills. It turned out to actually be a 160 and is too cold now. Of course it's all the same after the thermostat opens all the way, no matter what temp it is.