I'll explain what I had in mind for the electronics gurus. I don't have any specific diagrams though.
The system uses a very simple actuator. It is actually an power door lock actuator. Its a simple 2 wire device. Put 9V in one wire and it goes out, 9V in the other wire and it goes back in. There are no stop switches inside of it, so if you keep putting 9V in it keeps trying to go out/in. So, it requires the use of a timer. Roughly 1 second is enough to complete the throw of the actuator in either direction. This is what I don't know how to do. I was looking at using the 555 IC. But, I haven't found anything that exactly fits my situation, and I don't know enough to customize one myself.
Controlling the actuator will be a coolant temperature switch. Something similar to
this. Of course, all this does is throw a switch. So, I was thinking that using a DPDT relay would be enough to switch the ground/power to reverse the actuator. However, the timer must be used to stop the power flow to the actuator once it is done moving.
Make sense?
I don't really want to get into programmable chips. It should be simple enough to do with standard ICs.