TheSamba.com :: View topic - Anyone ever buy this thermostat? Awesome powdercoat

Tue Dec 25, 2018 3:11 pm

http://www.awesomepowdercoat.com/thermostat_new_used_rebuilt.html

Tue Dec 25, 2018 3:41 pm

read some old posts on here and the consensus is they are high quality

Tue Dec 25, 2018 11:06 pm

They sell new thermostats (guaranteed a year, I think), and they sell good used OEM ones (no guarantee).

I haven’t heard any bad flak about them.

Tim

Wed Dec 26, 2018 4:26 am

I've used one for a couple of years, and so far, it works good. No complaints.

Thu Dec 27, 2018 9:33 pm

Just bought one a month or two ago for my Bug...will be installing it in the spring when the car comes out of storage. Seems well made...tested it with a heat gun and it seems to expand and contract properly.

Fri Jul 18, 2025 9:20 am

I've had three of them fail in the past year or so. Maybe something changed in the materials he uses to seal these. I don't think there's anything I'm doing when installing that is causing the failures. Got one directly from AP in December 2023 (failed and replaced/repaired after about 1500 miles, now replacement has failed after about 2000 miles), and another from a different vendor that also failed in a similar short time. I was hoping maybe the other vendor had older/better stock but I guess not.

All were type 4. Other versions may be different.

Fri Jul 18, 2025 2:05 pm

Use the bellows type, do NOT use the spring with wax chamber type. The bellows type will fail in the safe, full cooling position, the spring loaded wax filled chamber type will fail in the unsafe, closed, no cooling position, which can destroy your motor.

below is the BAD spring wax filled chamber thermostat, DO NOT USE this type!!!!!!! When it heats up, the wax expands in the chamber, pushing a piston that fights the spring (stretching the spring) this then opens the flaps for full cooling. when the seal in the wax chamber fails, the wax leaks out, and will no longer stretch the spring, thus the spring will hold the flaps closed, assuring that your engine does NOT get cooling air when warmed up
Bad type...

The bellows type will fail if it leaks, gets a crack, but it will fail so that the flaps open so you get full cooling. The bellow will fully expand when it fails, as when sealed and cold, a vacuum keeps the bellows collapsed, loose the vacuum do to heating (liquid inside the bellows when heated boils, and thus increases the pressure inside) or a leak (air will rush in and expand the bellows), and presto, she expands and your flaps will be open for full cooling A very safe design.

Fri Jul 18, 2025 4:29 pm

I bought one from them last year. Bellows type. Supposedly NOS, which I believe to be true. It seems like good quality to me and it's working properly. I also bought a refurbished flap kit at the same time, and the quality of that was good too.

Side note: When I first placed my order, I heard nothing back, no order confirmation, nothing, for a couple weeks. I was a little nervous because I had paid the money via PayPal, so I followed up with an email and they replied that they were behind and hadn't gotten it done yet. Fair enough, but acknowledging the order or letting me know they were behind would have made sense to me. Anyway, I did get the order not long after that and I'm happy with the quality.

Fri Jul 18, 2025 4:55 pm

aquifer wrote: I bought one from them last year. Bellows type. Supposedly NOS, which I believe to be true. It seems like good quality to me and it's working properly. I also bought a refurbished flap kit at the same time, and the quality of that was good too.

Side note: When I first placed my order, I heard nothing back, no order confirmation, nothing, for a couple weeks. I was a little nervous because I had paid the money via PayPal, so I followed up with an email and they replied that they were behind and hadn't gotten it done yet. Fair enough, but acknowledging the order or letting me know they were behind would have made sense to me. Anyway, I did get the order not long after that and I'm happy with the quality.
I'm having the same problem with an industrial tins order. Its been a few weeks with nothing. I guess I'll have to email them.

Sat Jul 19, 2025 11:32 am

I bought two from them. A full flap setup with a thermostat and a throttle ring setup with a thermostat. Both have been working flawlessly.

Sat Jul 19, 2025 7:48 pm

I bought a thermostat from him for my 36’er over 6 years ago and it is still going strong. Have you reached out to him about the multiple failures? I’m sure he would want to look into what’s going wrong so they could be improved.

Mon Jul 21, 2025 9:39 am

Bug-nut wrote: Have you reached out to him about the multiple failures? I’m sure he would want to look into what’s going wrong so they could be improved.

Yep. He's replacing the latest one. Told him how that one seemed to only partially fail so that it only returned halfway to cold position, which seems impossible unless it got hung up on the bracket or maybe if the cable slipped where it attaches to the flap rod. I checked and it cleared the bracket OK and the cable was still clamped where it should be. That half-way thing only happened a few times that I saw before it failed to the fully expanded state, so maybe there was a very tiny pinhole leak?

The one I have installed now has been working fine for about 1000 miles (I do a lot of short trips so that's actually a lot of warm/cold cycles) and isn't doing anything weird yet, so maybe I was just really unlucky and the first two and one replacement all came from a batch with weak solder or something? I feel like I have a "talent" for finding the worst part in the run, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if nobody else ever had an AP thermostat fail.

Mon Jul 21, 2025 4:15 pm

My understanding is that you should never test a bellows thermostat unrestrained outside of its holder. To do so allows the bellows to stretch past its normal position leading to damage.

I wonder how many people heat their new thermostats up to see if it works and then find out that their thermostat is damaged "out of the box"?