last year at Silverstone I bought from Gerry Goguen a brand new thermostat
by Smiths. i.e. orig. type t-stat in its housing, still in the box. It is
painted a nice dull matt black, a bit like Lucas things like dynamos.
While on the subject of colours, my water pump had been painted over in
"engine red", probably after a rebuild many years ago, but a small section
right underneath had been missed, and it was quite a bright green, almost
"lawnmower green" so that it how I finished the whole engine.
By coincidence, a lot of small parts in our TCs were cast by a firm called
"Qualcast" (look at your original brake slave cylinders - they probably have
a small lozenge shape with Qualcast in it). And for those who don't know,
the firm was better known for its lawnmowers!!!
Keep on MotorinG (or Badgering away, as they say in some parts...)
Roger Furneaux TC0978 TC2365
Chip Old wrote:
>You'll probably get 75 different answers, so good luck sorting them out!
>Back in the late '70s and early '80s when I was doing articles on
>originality for TSO, I came across old black & white factory engine photos
>showing what appeared to be a variety of color combinations. Whether they
>were all production line engines or whether some of them were dolled up
>for the photographer is unknown. My conclusion was that *most of the
>time* the engines were completely assembled before painting, so the
>thermostat housing and all the aluminum parts ended up engine color. I
>have no idea whether that was the correct conclusion, but it was supported
>by the best evidence available at the time.
>
>Personally, I prefer to leave the aluminum parts unpainted, and to paint
>the various brackets and odds and ends of small parts black to contrast
>with the red engine paint, but that's just my preference.
>
>By the way, some TC water elbows were cast aluminum alloy, some were cast
>iron. I've never seen anything to indicate which was used when in XPAG
>production.