Radiator overflow & windshield washer bottles alternatives...

[toofastforyou]

Both my radiator overflow and windshield washer bottles have become yellowed over time. To solve this, I had two options: 1˚ I could just buy new ones, but they would yellow again after a period of time OR 2˚ have them sanded down, all the seams in the plastic removed and painted gloss black.

I decided to go with option #2 and have them done in black I'm including some pictures to show the results...Has anyone here done this?

I'm also including a third of a GN that was for sale on Ebay which had some very neat aluminium replacement tanks...Does someone know where to but these?

Thanks for your answers,

Claude. :wink:

 

[silentbutdeadly]

First off, the painted overflow and washer fluid bottle are awesome How did you get them done? Wet sand?

TRCustom Parts has the aluminum ones you asked about on his site. Deren

 

[DailyDrifter]

Some of the new coolant overflows are already yellowed. The painted ones dont look too bad IMO. BTW how the hell do you keep your engine bay so freakin clean I think I saw your car a couple of years ago at E-Town with Cotton. There was a couple of cars with a chitload of chrome under the hood and it all looked brand new. How do you guys do it?

 

[Bruce Urie]

Dave, it's real easy to keep the engine bay clean...all you do is spend one or two days, about 8 hours each day, and clean with a cloth, brush, cleaner, every part of the engine you can reach...for the parts you can't reach, you remove the part that's in the way. And paint/polish every part you want. Every time after you finish driving the car, pop the hood and spend about a few hours dusting it off, wiping away any oil, water, bugs, beer cans, roadkill, etc. See, it's real easy...I used to do that all the time with my '69 Vette and Grand National....every weekend. My engines were like our Turbo buddies here, so clean you can eat off of it. Finally, with a back that kills me every time I have to lean over the fenders for more than 15 minutes, I said the hell with it, I'm just going to drive the hell out of it and if anyone doesn't like dirt on my engine, they can wipe it off for me. It really got rediculous to do all of that just to get compliments at car shows. Now I keep my engine just "kinda" clean. Only if an opossum moves in it, I'll clean it really good. Other than that, like I said, the hell with it. I'm too old to worry about that any more...all I want to do is just go very fast. If you can't catch me, you can't see the dirty engine.

Take care, Dave. And thank you for the GBODY magnets from my last order from you. You are so kind of a person. Wish everybody was like you.

Bruce '87 Grand National

 

[toofastforyou]

First off, the painted overflow and washer fluid bottle are awesome How did you get them done? Wet sand?

TRCustom Parts has the aluminum ones you asked about on his site. Deren

Deren, first, thank you for the good coments! :smile: I had a friend of mine rough sand the seams where the two halves of the tanks meet and then using some finer sandpaper, he sanded down everything as smooth as possible. After that, he used a special primer which hides some the few imperfections still visible and finally painted them a shiny gloss black.

As for the aluminium ones I just didn't know that TRCustom Parts had them!...:redface: These would look great CHROMED!CHROMED!!

Some of the new coolant overflows are already yellowed. The painted ones dont look too bad IMO. BTW how the hell do you keep your engine bay so freakin clean I think I saw your car a couple of years ago at E-Town with Cotton. There was a couple of cars with a chitload of chrome under the hood and it all looked brand new. How do you guys do it?
__________________
Dave

Thanks Dave for the compliments about my engine compartment!:wink: As for how to keep it that clean?...Well Bruce Urie summed it up pretty good in the last post!... It's quite possible that you saw my GN at E-Town with Cotton as "Jack's the man" I'm relying on to make it run good! :biggrin:

Thanks,

Claude. :smile:

 

[TR Custom Parts]

Reservoirs Aluminum

 

[coach]

The aluminum coolant tanks dont work with ALKY, just remember that. I am making an aluminum cover to go over the plastic so it matches the others.
Coach

 

[YouLikeThat]

Reservoirs Aluminum

Very nice!

 

[Bruce Urie]

Yeah, I agree. Real nice. A great idea. You've got me thinking now. And you can see what a nice job in preperations give you...all the sanding and smoothing sure pays off. Great job there.

Bruce '87 Grand National

Claude, I'm glad we agree. We are both guilty of this "engine bay spic and span" disease!:biggrin:

 

[DailyDrifter]

Bruce, I dont know if I could spend 16hrs to clean the engine bay . If I ever get the engine back in my car I think i'll just blast it with a pressure washer when it gets dirty :biggrin:.

 

[Turbo1dr]

The secret to keeping something clean is to never let it get dirty in the first place.

Oh, nice black coolant bottles.

 

[turbo39151]

The secret to keeping something clean is to never let it get dirty in the first place.

Oh, nice black coolant bottles.

X10 Those coolant bottles look great. (kinda hard to see how much fluid is left though...)

BTW, the cleaning thing is a disease, I think. I was cleaning my bay the other day and saw that the i/c was a bit dirty looking and paint was flaked so I pulled it only to discover that the water pump and front cover looked rough only to discover... Well, it's mostly all apart now... I hate these cars.

 

[trbochrgd1]

Claude, great idea with the tanks. I can't wait to see them in person. Your car is going to be a rocket! :biggrin:

 

[sullen]

i did mine in metallic black.
im really liking the gloss, they look great.

 

[toofastforyou]

Claude, great idea with the tanks. I can't wait to see them in person. Your car is going to be a rocket! :biggrin:

Mike, my car is at Jack's shop at the moment for some final details we didn't do last fall because we were running out of time...:redface: But you'll eventually see the results!...:smile:
regards,

Claude. :wink:

-->Also, does someone know who makes the exact same aluminium ones as in the third picture of my first post? I looked at the ones Mark sells and even if I find them very nice, I'm not sure if I like the "sight level" on them... :frown:...but it might be handy...