Quote Originally Posted by Spike View Post
All very interesting and great info. When I purchased my radiator I went to a radiator repair shop and asked the guy what the factory listed for the HX, he dragged out the book and it listed HX with and without recovery bottle and listed the same psi cap for both. I would have thought that the cap would be a little higher pressure rating without the recovery bottle. Taily what bottle do you use, mounted where and is the height of the bottle important?
I used a fairly simple system. A 2.5lt Valvoline coolant bottle (doesn't matter what it is from, just the shape of the bottle) that I just sat in between the battery and the LH guard. I left the cap on the bottle but drilled a 9-10mm hole in the top, through which I loosly inserted a bit of 8mm (5/16) metal tube (long enough to touch the bottom of the bottle) with a bend where it emerged from the bottle. I attached a bit of clear hose between that and the radiator overflow outlet, with enough slack in the tube that I could slip the top off the bottle easily. As WBute mentioned, the installed height of the bottle isn't important, just that there is enough room in the bottle to accept the (temporarily) expended water from the cooling system and that the tube is deep enough in the bottle to allow the contents of the bottle to be completely drawn into the cooling system if need be.

Mine was only a basic set up but what it worked just as well as the factory set up on the later HX/Z/WB. I used a metal tube in the bottle as a rubber hose can kink and the system wont work. The advantages of doing this to your cooling system are threefold: you wont drop coolant everywhere everytime you stop somewhere; You wont have to physically remove the cap to check your coolant level, and; You wont have any air/oxygen in your cooling system to accellerate corrosion.

If I was going to re-make mine I'd use a clear bottle so I could more easily see the level of the overflow bottle - though you can now buy a repro HX on recovery bottle from Rares (etc). Not sure if it comes with a mount to the LH inner guard though...