A recent post on the H.A.M.B. got me thinking... Radiator overflow cans are one of those details on a car that you can have some fun with. Some folks keep it simple and functional while others ... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
Man, I was just on Ebay last night looking at old canteens for this reason! I have been watching The War on PBS, and it got me in the mood I guess!
I have an old, small brass, pump up fire extinguisher hanging on the wall....it was going to be my overflow, but after seeing a couple of the old WWII canteens....I need one of 'em instead....the brass extinguisher would stick out like a sore thumb.....
I was looking at those as overflow tanks, here at the local Army surplus store, they are only 5 bucks each, look great, but are a little big in my opinion.
I got a couple of those baby blue army practice rockets...I'm still a little spooked to start drilling holes in them, but think of the glory!
On the 39 GMC I got a brass extinguisher on my firewall that's a puke can..... few see it! Less mention it
If they're blue, you don't need to be spooked...unless someone other than the Army painted them blue! Standard military usage to mark inert training-aid ordnance...
I run one of those 24 oz. Heinekin keg cans. It looks like a tiny moon tank. It's got green on it to match the car. I drank the $4 worth of beer out of it.
that would be PERFECT for my newest build! wait....radiator is going to be in the bed hidden......ugh....nevermind.
I bought a canteen off of ePay to use on my coupe- but when I got it it looked too nice to use for a catchcan. I kinda felt disrespectful. Kevin Lee's catchcan he built out of copper pipe for his old roadster is sweet.
I bought this WW1 US Army Canteen when I was about 12 and it's been kicking around in the attic for 55 years. I just installed it as a radiator overflow tank on my Hemi powered 32 Roadster that I got on the road in July.
I don't have a picture but Scotbot sent me a really old whiskey bottle to use on the truck. Damn nice of him!
I got a "Flathead cola" glass bottle off of Ebay back when a search covered everything on Ebay. I learned a lot about the flathead Indian tribe and the Flathead mountains in Montana. I got a Flathead Ale tap for my shifter too. I know glass wouldn't pass tech but if they made a Rocket cola bottle wouldn't you want it on your Olds powered hot rod?
I've got an antique embalming fluid bottle I dug up from an old cistern in the back yard. No picture of it , but I think it would be pretty cool. It's a plain square bottle with the words "embalming fluid" embossed on it.
The same WWII-Korea era canteens were used by the Boy Scouts of America as Official BSA gear when they came on the surplus market. The BSA ones often are in the original U.S. marked pouches with an additional BSA ink stamp on the pouch. Earlier BSA canteens were the saucer shaped ones with aluminum or bakelite screw in plugs. So, if you feel bad about using a GI's canteen, how about a Boy Scout's? "Be Prepared"
Those basic canteens were "Model 1910", and I think were still called that into the sixties when plastic ones came along... They had aluminum caps til about '43, then bakelite after that, so two styles to play with... The military actually stocked spare parts for these--caps and corks, chains... and somewhere around here I have one of the flat BSA canteens made with an Army bakelit cap; presumably the supplier bougt up the surplus spares after WWII. Somehow, I imagine there's a warehouse somewhere containg 25 tons of spare cork gaskets stockpiled by deranged military planners. If you want weird variants, there were a number of alternate material ones made early in the war... Racers often mounted them polished and upside down, welding a nipple into the new topside, allowing the thing to be drained easily.
After I posted that thread, lots of great ideas came up. Still haven't decided yet, but there's some nice brass Harley oil tanks out there. I think they're called "oil bags"? That surplus aircraft tank is nice Bobby!
Boones had the insight to put a 60's period Coors can on the Sedan I bought, sorry I don't have a better pic of it.
A more modern version of Mr. Green's, but it still sparked a lot of questions. On my 52 sedan, I used a leftover oil reservoir from the A.P.U. (small turbine engine that powers the generator & A/C when the plane is at the gate) on a Boeing 737. It was stainless, so I did a quickie polish job on it and mounted it with big hose clamps.
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