Overflow Bottle for BT7

[Deleted member 21878]

so i have hooked up my overflow bottle to give it a try.
first thing i did was boil some water and pour in to the bottle to see how it would handle the heat. did not seam to affect it.

next i mounted the bracket for the bottle. i thought about putting it on the fender brace but in the end i really did not want anything else in that area. cleaner the better for changing plugs, etc. so i mounted the bottle up where a BJ8 would have their washer bottle.

i drilled a hole in the top of the bottle and slid in some clear tubing i had bought. i pulled the black overflow hose on the radiator out of it's clips and routed it behind the fender brace. i did not want to cut the black tubing in case i decide to put it back the way it was. i could have drilled the hole in the cap as opposed to the bottle. in the cap it would have made it easy to take the cap off and empty or clean the bottle. but drilling in to the bottle made the cap look a little cleaner. So that is the way i went. it took about 2-1/2' of tubing to reach the end of the radiator drain tube and i connected with a plastic barb fitting.

i put some silicone in the hole in the cap and plan to use the connector that ran to the wipers as my vent. i am going to get some tubing for that so i can extend it to the bottom of the car.

My radiator cap actually was missing the outside seal. i never noticed it. so i made one out of some rubber i had. the seal on my TR6 cap is .057 thick and this seal is .046. guess we shall see if it will pull coolant back out of the bottle. it is only a 7lb cap.

all in an easy job and i can put it back without an issue if i like.

 

[steveg]

Clean installation.
Healey caps don't come with the outside seal. Some others (MGs IIRC) do.

 

[Deleted member 21878]

aahhhh, ok. so that is why you suggested making the outer seal. so the cap would not suck air back in. hmmmm. sometimes it takes me a while to catch on.

 

[Deleted member 21878]

Steve
apparently the outside seal needs to be about .060 thick. the first one i made was out of a tire tube and it was .046. yesterday when the car was cooling down i could hear some air sucking in around the cap. i could push down on the cap and it would stop. so i made a thicker seal that was .060. no sucking noise as of yet. i measured the seal on my TR6 and it was .057. the caps look exactly the same except the TR6 is a 13lb cap.

 

[John Turney]

Hi All,

Although a pressurized overflow bottle cam on my TR7. I prefer the non-pressurized approach for my Healey. The non-pressurized system required the replacement of the original radiator cap with a Balkamp 703-1411 purchased at NAPA which allows for fluid recovery. Since the tank is not pressurized, any 2 qt, capped container will do. For me, my selection was an empty gear oil container that fit inconspicuously on a small platform created between the radiator and fender and could be easily removed. Rerouting the overflow hose through a hole made in the overflow container cap was the last activity for this installation. It has served well over a number of years with no further consideration.

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Simple, effective, and inexpensive,

Ray(64BJ8P1)

Thanks for that suggestion, Ray. I needed a new overflow since the locations for my previous bottles were now occupied with other things.