[T2] electronic thermostat

[Christophe Guilbert]

Thanks guys for your inputs.

One of your main concern is that the electronic thermostat fail open.  I 
forget to mention it but yes the thermostat fail open. For safety , I 
did what Chris D. mentioned.  a spring mounted to the bracket and the 
cam shaft (where the cable is attached)  position the servo so that the 
flaps are open if anything fails. The servo has to fight the spring 
tension to close the flap. If the servo fail or the engine stop, the 
servo goes back to position 0 (open flap). I am also planing to add an 
alarm (buzzer) if the temperature stay too hight for a certain period of 
time like 10'. I can also ask the servo to open the flap by default 
after 10' or driving.  I also may hijack the servo so I can monitor the 
position of the servo and trigger an alarm if I stay close for a certain 
period of time.

I am planing to monitor all kind of temperatures (oil , cylinder III, 
outside, .... ), the real advantage is that all information can be 
summarized in one LCD screen display. To answer Robert , I will use any 
thermocouple sensors already available in our bus but I like the idea of 
having an infrared (none contact) temp sensor of the top of cylinder 
III. Why just because I can ! ;-)

I want to calibrate the flap opening according to temperature the same 
way the original thermostat used to.  I think I will start to use a 
thermocouple sensors bolt to the engine (not to the cylinder head) in 
the engine compartment and calibrate the opening according to the 
original thermostat ( I still have one).

Checking the rpm by slap a tape-recorder head at the flywheel is a great 
idea , I already bought one sensor to play with it.

An over ride switch to control the flap opening is easy to setup but if 
the electronic thermostat works great , why would you need one ? the 
flap control is made with a temp increment of 5deg Centigrade

One of my project is to add a second small oil cooler with a fan. I 
found one on ebay from a Harley motorcycle , I will trigger/control it 
according to temperature.

And hey why not installing a rear camera for backing up ?!

Ok , time to really test it, hopefully in death valley next week.

Thanks

Chris