Very Early Thermostat

[Mumbles]

While working on the ’59 Fastwin which was given to me recently, I decided to check the thermostat and here’s what I found.

It looked to be in reasonably good condition and when I cleaned it up, the build date stamped on it shows it was manufactured in November of 1958. It has to be the original one which came with this motor and it either worked really, really good over the years or was skipped over during maintenance. Either way, it doesn’t work now when tested to 180F and will be replaced. Too bad as I’m sure it would have been the oldest working one in existence if it did work.

[bobw]

That stat looks to be in unbelievably good condition for that old – too bad it doesn’t work!

Bob

1937 Champion D2C Deluxe Lite Twin
1954 Johnson CD-11
1957 Evinrude Fastwin 18
1958 Johnson QD-19
1958 Johnson FD-12
1959 Johnson QD-20

“Every 20 minute job is only a broken bolt away from a 3-day project.”
"Every time you remove a broken or seized bolt an angel gets his wings."

[Mumbles]

Yeah, I was kind of disappointed it didn’t work. The motor shows some signs of salt water use and the action is free on the stat so maybe the wax in it has leaked out over time.

[bob-d]

Jim, learned something new, didn’t know that thermostats had date codes.
Bob D

[Mumbles]

bob-d wrote:

Jim, learned something new, didn’t know that thermostats had date codes.
Bob D

The older ones did but the ones you buy today don’t. It made it easy to tell if and when it had ever been changed or not.

Not that many years ago before all the coils in the world started cracking, you could see a piece of white tape thru the coating on the coil. It had the manufacturing date stamped on it to.

[Author]

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