Are you speaking of the billet aluminum housing offered on their site? It looks as though it is double ringed? Meaning the ring on the thermostat plus one in the housing?
Here is my situation. First time deisel owner with a small windfall to spend. Not nearly enough to buy a new truck, but enough to shop for a nice used truck and invest in a few goodies for it.
I found a beautifully maintained 2000 F-350 with 140K on the clock. I invested in all new cooling equipment from Mishimoto with a new thermostat housing from Sinister Diesel.
All was going well until I got to the thermostat. I had purchased the Mishimoto thermostat for hot weather, but couldn't put my hands on it and was getting up against a planned outing with the trailer. Never, never let yourself get in a rush.
In removing the housing I had no problem removing the bolts, but the housing seemed welded to the pump and the thermostat was big clump of corroded crap and had to be pried Down to Autozone to grab a thermostat, Dang! no gasket! Buy one separately and rush home to install. WAIT! this gasket does not look right! but it does match a small indentation in the thermostat and the Fel-Pro packaging confirms the 99-03 7.3 Powerstroke fit. so a small bit of RTV to hold it in place, cap it with the billet housing and bolt it down. Followed the refill instructions in the flush write-up here and did not notice the leak until I had lost about a gallon of Liquid Chill on my driveway. Pull the housing, grab the thermostat and gasket and head back down to Autozone where the different guy confirms the proper T-stat but came up with a different gasket, this one did look right even though the packaging said differently. Rush home to try to get the late nigfht install done for early departure. This time the gasket fit, bolt it down, wait the back bolt is not tightening, Stripped!!!! So much for this trip with this truck.
With the rush removed now, I have to look at doing it again since I didn't do it right.
Now I am thinking, do I go ahead and replace the entire pump? It looks like Diesel Site offers their pump for about 1/2 the price of a Motorcraft., and I am not sure if i am reading their info right that it is a OEM Ford or Motorcraft or just a replacement. But it looks much closer to OEM than any of the main parts chains offerings.
So my status right now is that I replaced the rear M6 X 1.00 bolt with a 1/4" NC bolt which is a trick an old mechanic taught me. Bolt goes in, no rethreading, tightens and seemed to be holding tight until I ran a few errands in the truck which resulted in a fairly significant leak.
So next plan is to start over and do an entire Dieselsite Water pump related parts replacement. Wise Choice? I just wish I had done it while I had the entire front of the truck apart.

 

Ah dangit, sorry....this is what I was referring to.

https://www.strictlydiesel.com/p-267...sing-ring.aspx

As far as redoing everything, I am not entirely sure. If the water pump holes are toast, you don't really have a choice but to do it over....and like I tell a close friend of mine on this forum....TAKE YOUR TIME. Bad things always happen when we rush. We have all been there, believe me. How do you think I learned about the ring kit? LOL!! Lemme know if I can help. I have done many water pumps and thermostat fixes.

 

Thanks for the clarification BBSlider. It looks like maybe something worthwhile even if I do get the whole new pump. So does the t-stat fit in its normal place, the the new plate, O-ring and then housing?

Thanks, Rich

 

Yeah Rich, glad to help. That's how it sits in there. There will be instructions with the ring kit that also include torque values. The O-ring vs. the square stock gasket makes a big difference. You'll torque it down three times so it sits evenly on the housing, thus alleviating the potential to leak. The ring fixes that by not bending under load. The main reason these housing leak is because the housing bends under torque and it's almost impossible to get it sitting even. You'll torque in inch pounds....32, then 75, then 110 IIRC.

 

Good thing you already got it. Looks like they don't ship to CA any more.

 

PM sent..........

 

I just saw that!! And they are in frickin Arizona. What a bunch of horsechit. I guess if I needed something from them bad enough, I'd just have it shipped to a buddy and they could send it to me...or just drive over and get it LOL