JohnnyBs68S

I'm in the process of adding the OAI system to my '68. When attempting to move the washer bottle from the driver's side to the passenger side, I discovered my original bottle doesn't fit the contours of the pass-side wheel well like it does on the driver side (not all that surprising). So it appears that two different bottles were used by the factory depending on which side it was mounted. So my question is, is the bottle that is sourced by most vendors with the "notch" in the one corner, the correct one for mounting on the passenger side? Here's a link to one example.

I'm also curious what that notch is for? Is it to clear the lower radiator hose?

Thanks!

rob1960

There was only one bottle made for '68 & it didn't have a notch. Unfortunately the "repop" bottle available these days is the '70-'72 style with the notch(for the battery cable) They just molded it in black instead of white. The bottle mounts farther down on the front corner of the RH wheel house(If you're using the stock black wheel houses the holes or dimples for the RH bottle mount should be there but they probably won't line up with all 3 tabs on the repop bottle. I added OAI to my '68 but mine has A/C so I had to make sure it cleared the A/C lines,plus the repop red wheel houses didn't have any markings or holes for RH mounting. I just moved the bottle around 'til it fit the best & used a scribe through the holes in the tabs to mark the whl house. It will sit a little crooked. Nice looking car by the way!!!

JohnnyBs68S

Thanks for the reply, pic and complement! Your car is beautiful as well, it gives me something to aspire to!

I do see some dimples in my black wheel wells down low where it appears you have your's mounted (these were handy for locating the OAI hose clips), but they didn't seem to line up with all of the mounting holes / tabs for my original bottle, which is what led me to believe there were two different bottles used by the factory. If the repop bottles won't fit any better than my original, I'll just figure out how to mount my original bottle. I may have to use some spacers to keep from breaking off the tabs when I torque down the mounting bolts (the contour of the bottle seems to have a larger radius than the wheel well in that area, preventing the tabs from sitting flush w/ the wheel well in all 3 locations).

allyolds68

The 68 Assembly Manual pretty much spells it out:

JohnnyBs68S

Thanks. Those are the dimples I attempted to line the tabs of my factory bottle up to. But as I mentioned they all don't line up. I'll take another stab at this tonight, if I can just get it to sit nice and flush and level and get 1 or 2 holes to line up, I'll drill new holes and use spacers if necessary. I'm just glad to know that there isn't a "left" and "right" version of the washer bottle, and that the repop bottles would not be expected to fit any better than my factory bottle. For this, I appreciate your quick replies.

(That assembly manual pic also confirms the routing and retention of the washer hose along the wheel well; that was going to be the next mystery for me to resolve!)

joe_padavano

Be aware that even the factory installed passenger side bottles didn't fit that well. These were never intended to be showcars.

Koda

Can you comment on how much you had to squish the OAI hose over the AC components?

As far as I know, only the 68 HO with AC came out with OAI hose over AC stuff like this from the "factory."

joe_padavano

The problem isn't the O.A.I. hose so much as the metal hot air adapter on the bottom of the passenger side snorkel clearing the compressor bracket. Yes, the 68 H/O was the only Olds ever sold with under bumper O.A.I. and A/C. Here are some photos I took at Pismo Beach a couple of years ago. Unfortunately I don't have a good shot of that adapter, but it was pretty much hammered flat. The last photo illustrates why the 1968 A/C cars got the angled oil fill tube. The non-O.A.I. air cleaner snorkel was clocked between the compressor and fill tube to allow that adapter to clear the bracket.

rob1960

I had to flatten the rh OAI hose just a little bit on mine but I'm running an old Edelbrock O4B intake which raises the carb about an inch over the factory cast iron intake. Luckily with the extra intake height I don't have a problem with with the hot air adapter hitting the compressor bracket. I'm sure Joe would know, I seem to remember an old thread about whether or not the W46(a/c H/Os) used a spacer on top of the carb??? That '68 H/O in the pic looks like it has the wrong hot air adapter on the air cleaner snorkel. They used the shorter flatter one.