Jordan Radiator Cap

[TexRiv_63]

I picked up this Jordan Motometer which came with a nice chrome plated octagonal radiator cap. The cap measures 3" across and only 9/16" high, there is no makers mark or part number showing. I am trying to find out if this could have been an original style cap for a Jordan car or if it is aftermarket, thank you Jordan experts!

[viv w]

The octagonal cap is most likely for an MG and nothing to do with a Jordan

[Terry Bond]

Yup, that certainly looks like the radiator cap on our 1948 MGTC.

Here are a few photos of Jordan caps with the Boyce Motometer installed.

Terry

 

[nickelroadster]

Motometers are aftermarket items themselves.

[wayne sheldon]

Caps and Moto-meters are very difficult. Many collectors over the years have mixed them up. Moto-meters were sometimes sold by original automobile  dealerships as factory authorized accessories. Many times, even if the factory offered them as an authorized accessory, a car would be bought without one, and a Moto-meter would later be bought as an after-market item from any local dealer or mail-order that carried them. Most after-market parts dealers carried them as a part of their inventory. Parts houses often had a sales kit that included marque name plates of most cars locally available. Fifty years ago, such kits were commonly found at swap meets including many NOS marque plates. That so many dealers had so many unsold plates is why some of the more rare marques are actually easy to find the Moto-meter for them (I have two for my Paige!).

Most cars, regardless of the marque, left the factory with a factory standard radiator cap. Radiator caps ranged from simple and plain Bakelite caps, cast metal caps, or stamped metal caps, all the way through to fancy caps unique to specific make or even models of marques. Factory authorized accessory caps might leave the factory on a car, or be change later by the selling dealer. In addition to all of those, literally thousands of differing after-market caps were made and sold to fit virtually anything. With or without Moto-meters, ornaments, or even whirligigs, caps were everything from plain to dogbones or wings, some so fancy and ornamental they looked like they belonged in a Egyptian exhibit!

 

A lot of cars of the 1910s and 1920s? Just knowing what the factory original cap looked like can be really difficult. A lot of cars, like my Paige, had a distinctive and unique cap, all their own. Others, any of many common style caps may be as close as you may get? A lot of the factory caps left the factory with no Moto-meter, but had something in the way of a recess or knock-out to help locate the hole for future addition of a Moto-meter. 

 

I don't know what a Jordan factory cap looks like. I looked at several original Paige advertisements to help identify the Paige cap. Detail like that is pretty iffy in era advertising, but it did help with the Paige. The Paige original caps, like so many others that era, were pot metal. My factory original caps are slightly swollen, and a bit warped, I have an original era after-market dogbone I have on the car.

[Terry Bond]

You really need a factory parts catalog to see what the right cap for a particular car looks like.   

There is additional discussion on the Memorabilia forum about the Boyce motometers themselves, but the OP, who is a very knowledable collector was asking about the cap itself.

Terry

[TexRiv_63]

15 hours ago, Terry Bond said:

Yup, that certainly looks like the radiator cap on our 1948 MGTC.

Here are a few photos of Jordan caps with the Boyce Motometer installed.

Terry

 

Thanks Terry and others, I never thought of an MG but that makes sense. My Google search of Jordan did show a number of bakelite caps similar to your photos. 

[TexRiv_63]

Since the topic includes the Motometer, another question. This one has a chrome plated finish but most appear to have been nickel plated. Were they available from Boyce in chrome?

[TexRiv_63]

By the way - BINGO. 1948 MG

[jwilli43]

It's hard to say what was original. Most caps were pot metal and broke down over the years.  

Just a side note, there is a Jordan category on the AACA site.