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Here's a thought:
The old air-cooled VW's use an alcohol-filled bellows as a thermostat, to open and close these 'flaps' within the fan shroud. The guys who engineered this back in the 50's really did their homework. When the bellows heats up, it gets taller by about 2 cm, opening up the air control flaps through a series of very simple lever arms. Flaps open allow cooling air to reach the heads and cylinders. While closed, the heaters still work, the oil cooler gets air, but the engine's top end is allowed to warm up. It's a ridiculously elegent design, that fails safe... if the bellows fails, the flaps stay in the open position. Replacement thermostat bellows for those engines are still available and cheap. The rest of the hardware wouldn't be of use for your project I don't think.
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