Aftermarket - Rounded bottom is not original

I have an original small neck bottle, 1500 type (the dirty at far right), but the printing is long since gone from that one. The one to immediate right was from a swap meet, so origin is unknown, but it is the larger cap 1600 style. The early model bottle has the small cap. Later issue bottle (and current replacement part) has a larger diameter cover.

There is an inlet check valve (foot valve) on the hose in the bottom of the bottle. For the manual pump to work there must also be an outlet check valve in the pump. These check valves may be loath to work properly after 40 odd years. While the foot valve can be replaced, the outlet check is part of the manual pump (which is not intended to be disassembled for service). Aquarium check valves (see following page) are a cheap and reliable solution to this problem, although not concours, of course.

The reservoir for the washer fluid is mounted on the heater shelf in the engine bay just ahead of the control box (opposite side from the driver). There will be two holes in the heater shelf for screws for the standard Tudor bottle bracket. The bracket is base mounted in the MGA but is also formed and punched for side mounting in other applications. Correct color for the bracket and lettering on the bottle is "Tudor Blue" (although Royal Blue is a Very close match). The hose runs through a grommet in the bulkhead nearby, just below the bonnet hinge.


In these pictures you can see there are a few different styles of printing on the bottles. I don't know yet which might be original issue (if any).

On 1/10/2016, Mark Wellard wrote:
"This may be of use to people with the older style washer bottle - produced for me from photographs by www.screenprintdigital.com in the UK".

There is a front and rear panel, the original here is 3 5/8" wide and 2 7/8" tall when measured from the text edges (front and rear text panels the same size). Front and rear text starts 1-5/8-inches from the top shoulder of the bottle. Photos immediately above left show front and back sides of the same bottle.

From Barney, January 14, 2016:
After cleaning the scanned image and re-sizing it, I made this GIF image.

(Click for larger printable PDF image file).

The 3-inch diameter bottle will be 9.43-in circumference. I made the decal layout that size. This is printed from an image 2074 x 1020 pixels, scaled 220 pixels per inch. When printed full scale it will be (should be) 9.43-in wide x 4.64-in high. The printed logos will be 1-5/8 inches from the top shoulder of the bottle. When wrapped around an exactly 3" diameter bottle the ends of the decal will exactly touch, and the top edge of the decal should be at the bottle shoulder to put the logo at the correct height.

On Sep 19, 2016, Jim Cheatham in Amelia, VA, wrote:
"I now have printing on my original washer bottle. We'll see how well it holds up".


The early style small mouth bottle (shown at left) is available from Mini Spares.