Resto: Radiator Overflow Tank

Gidday,

Radiator overflow tanks........

I have heard that some folks just use an old "coke" bottle with a hose attached to the radiator and they let the plastic bottle lay down in the engine bay of their old vintage cars to catch the hot water from the radiator, bugger that one, do it once and do it right.

Ray has installed an old brass Mini Cooper overflow tank down into the engine bay of his 1928 Chev, looks very nice, certainly has a good bit of character about it, better than a plastic bloody coke bottle that's for sure and has never given him any trouble so with that in mind I went hunting for one a few months back.

Well first thing I quickly found out after a few phone calls to Mini Cooper wreckers is that they are rare and getting very hard to get in good condition and can fetch up to $160 Oz dollar, shit, so I searched ebay and made more calls, but no luck at all.

One night Ray rang, sends me an email while we are on the phone talking and it was a link to the UK Ebay site.... BINGO!! one Mini Cooper brass tank for 15 pounds with 35 minutes left on the auction and no bids, I quickly emailed the seller about the postage to Australia, "No problems, all good" was the reply.
No one else bid and I got the tank including postage sent over to Australia for 25 pounds (About $45.00). Bloody bargain and 5 days later it landed at our front door.

So I have had a small bracket made up and I used the old existing 1928 Chevrolet oil filter metal strap to hold the tank in place where it will be mounted just below/next to the stator motor and the bracket will come off the chassis cross member, I will install some high density rubber under the tank and have it just resting on the metal engine bay floor just to take up some fatigue of any movement,
it should work fine..

One cheap but smart looking brass tank..... Cheers