What is this? (gm part)

[68SWB4x4]

Nice, thanks guys, the guy I got these parts from was a crazy 55-59 chevy truck collector, I am pretty sure this one is/was NOS in the original box but I screwed up and didn't store it right. I guess I will move this to WIW's as I intend to sell it.

This board has and will always be the best.

[DANTIP]

I recall seeing those on full-size Buicks in the 60's.

[ChevLoRay]

I'm having a flashback to the time when I was pumping gas in '66 at an ESSO station. Cadillac comes to mind, but it could have been Buick, Olds or Pontiac. Never saw one on a Chevy....but doesn't mean it couldn't have been on one. Oh, not on a mid-sixties, but a mid to late Fifties, with the 55-58's seeming to be what I remember.

[magicoolbus]

Definately out of a 55-59 chevy truck. Well at least the bracket is. The jar and lid were used in many GM products. The lid type is for a vacuum type of actuation. The one I have for mine is actually a foot pump pedal. Here's a shot of the installation instruction, a foot pump and a NOS washer jar and lid

[raycow]

You are definitely in the ballpark with mid to late 50s. Later ones had plastic reservoirs and earlier ones had a different pump design. The problem is that similar bottles were used by all GM divisions with only very slight differences. Non-GM cars had similar ones too, because they were made by Trico, an outside supplier to most of the OEMs.

The survival rate on these is low unless the car lived its whole life where the temperature didn't get down below freezing. A lot of owners were lax about adding sufficient antifreeze to the water.

Ray

[maxwedge528]

i was under the hood of a very original 55 cadillac sedan deville yesterday and it had a similar glass jar! windshield cleaner reservoir? as a matter of fact there was a gm label advising the owner to empty the bottle in the winter or to mix the water with GM something or another to prevent freezing. also surprising that the manual fuel pump was installed on the top of the motor kinda of in the area of the water neck to the top radiator hose.

[raycow]

Those washer bottles were more common on the higher priced cars than on Chevys. They might have been standard equipment or maybe that class of cars was just more heavily optioned as a matter of practice.

Cadillac wasn't the only engine with a top-mounted fuel pump. The Ford flathead had one and it was infamous for being prone to vapor lock. I don't recall hearing those stories about the Cad though. Maybe GM engineering was better?

Ray