Coolant Overflow Bottle

Overflow reservoir
Overflow reservoir

 

I initially installed this part.  Made some spiffy brackets, baked on some translucent powder coating.  It looked good.  But, the nose wouldn’t fit around it, and I needed something else.

 

I have a couple of plastic overflow bottles with connectors at each end.  One of them even had a sight tube on the side.  But they were so big around that it really didn’t fit well anywhere.  I cruised through a number of catalogs, and couldn’t really find anything I liked.   Canton makes some pretty cool aluminum tanks that would look pretty nice.  But they’re kind of expensive.

I decided to build something smaller and cheaper.  Turned out to be a lot lighter, too.   The coolant overflow is nothing fancy.  Just a container that can handle some heat.   Even a beer can and some duct tape would work.

Coolant Overflow
Coolant Overflow

I made the container out of 2″ PVC plastic.  Glued one cap on the bottom, and pressed the other cap on the top.   I drilled a hole in the cap and another in the bottom, and inserted a tubing connector I had lying around to the bottom hole.   But you could just as easily put the overflow tube through a hole in the cap, and run it down to the bottom.  Lots of options, there.   This just turned out to be easiest to do with what I already had.

I used some left over sheet metal ducting to make a couple of brackets; and riveted them to the frame.

Coolant Overflow
Coolant Overflow

Done deal.  Cheap, easy, effective, and very light weight.