VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 swamp cooler?

can any one tell me what a swamp cooler is and how it works?

It mounts on one of your side windows. It was filled with dry ice. or cold water. As you drove air would be forced into the front of it, and the air would go over the Ice to cool it. The cooler air would then be directed into the car by a the vent portion of the assembly which would hang on the onside of your window. Kind of like primitive AC. I have drove in a vintage car with one of them installed, and I cant say the car was cold, but it WAS cooler inside!

Hi,

FLEET47 was partially correct.

The swamp cooler was an evaporative type cooler. They came as the cheap and deluxe. The cheap model had a reel covered with a fiber type surface. The cooler was filled with water. This reel extended down into the water. To increase cooling you pulled on a rope/sash cord that caused the reel to turn providing a new source of water for the air to move through. The evaporation of the water cooled the air moving through it and into the car,

The deluxe model still had the same type reel that required you to pull occasionally, however the big difference was this cooler was fitted with a fan. Now you could have air moving over the evaporative reel and cooling when the car was not providing ram air.

These type coolers were very effective in the south and west where there was not much humidity.

There was also a model of these coolers that sat on the hump between the driver and passenger. This one was only available with the electric fan. It was fairly effective if it could overcome the heat produced by the engine.

thank you for the info guys. joe

I have the deluxe model with fan brand new in the box. It makes for a great conversation piece!

:) These coolers also tended to get the passenger a little damp! JYD, what is the brand of your cooler? I have an Allstate (Sears) one but it is missing the bracket that goes from the tank to the window. I have tried for years to find someone with a like cooler so I could get the dimemsions of the bracket as well as the degree of the bends in it, but so far no luck. My cooler does not have a fan but it is in excellent condition. Thanks. Stuart

When I go out to the shop later I will check the brand name for you and report back here.

In my opion the ICE theory is a myth.I cant for the life of me figure how you would get ice in a nickle to quarter sized fill hole,plus the sun beating down on the cooler would melt it really fast.Another thing is how do you submerge the pad in ice???Does anybody put ice in there home swamp coolers?

I have a bunch of them,run them on my cars,I like how they look.I also run the floor models,they work pretty good compared to nothing.

Beamer: I checked the brand name of my new old stock cooler and it is a "Kool-Aire", manufactured by Bonzer-Western Corporation.

Check entry 000002 above for how the swamp coolers work.

:) JYD, Thanks for looking. From what I understand, Kool Aire was the major brand for the swamp coolers. For Mistgreenfifty, you said you have a bunch of coolers. Are any of yours Alstate models? If anyone else out there has an Alstate model swamp cooler, I would very much appreciate hearing from them. Swamp coolers do not work very well in NY due to the high humidity but my cooler would look good hung on the old car as not everyone has one and around here, they are a rarity. Stuart

I know how they work,I have ran them for years.I just brought up the ice theory because everytime have one on my car there is somebody that comes up and tells me how they put ice in them.

I have the one that my dad bought in 1958 from Ace auto supply in Albuquerque,NM.I have the original reciept also,it is taped to the original box,it was $12.95,no tax because he worked at my uncles car lot,Abies auto sales.

I have 2 Allstates that are Thermadores wth Allstate decals.

There is also a Thermadore that had a Firestone decal.

What did you need to know?

:) MistGreenFifty, My Allstate blue and orange label just reads "Car Cooler, Allstate, Sears Roebuck and Co.". It doesn't say Thermadore on it. It is approximately 18 1/4" long and the main part of the tank is approximately 7 3/4" round (I say main part because the tank is a tear drop shape but the round part itself is this dimension). It is kind of a pea green. Near the center of the tank where it just starts to round up from the flat bottom, there is a bare metal area approximately 1" wide by 1 1/8" long. This area is smooth and does not look like anything was spot welded on there. There are several clips on the air outlet going into the car that fit on the window to support the cooler. Inasmuch as the tank would be quite heavy when filled with water, I think there must have been some kind of supporting bracket that went from the door to the bottom of the tank maybe resting on a rubber or something glued to the bare spot. Do your coolers have a bracket of any kind to support the cooler? Are they spot welded on the cooler or are they separate? By the way, I see you live in Belen. I lived in Albuquerque from 1963 to 1967 while attending UNM. Thanks for any help you can give me on the cooler issue. Stuart

Beamer,
I had the exact same cooler and there was a rod (1/4" or 5/16" ??) that ran from the lower - outer side of the cooler to the door. The rod was adjustable for different door styles. I don't think I have any pics of it on my car, but I'll take a look to see and post 'em if I can find them.

I "installed" our cooler on our '37 Chevy and my wife & I took a ride around the block to see how it worked. Before getting into the car (which was not easy with the "bomb" on the door), my wife remarked subtly, how ugly it looked - I agreed, but then, being married for 40 years, I ALWAYS agree. The cooler completely blocked vision out the passenger's side window (I had it on my coupe, so there was no rear window available). There was definitely some coolder air evident at speed, but after 4 or 5 miles, the interior of the car was like the Okeefenokee (sp?) swamp !! God forbid you stopped for a traffic light, as the humidity got close to 99%. It was darn near raining inside the car, the humidity was so high. I returned home, removed it from the car, dried & cleaned it up and sold it on Ebay. That was about 4 or 5 years ago and I haven't missed it since. Might be OK on the Gobi desert, but certainly not in NYS in the summer, at least IMHO !
-Bob

It sounds like yo have the ht/conv cooler.There should be a rod with it.It probaly is a Thermadore labeled as Allstate.The sedan coolers have a piece the fits in the felt and clamps above that clamp to the top of the door frame.

Having used evaporative coolers since I was young, the evaporative cooler works by saturateing a pourous material (a pad) with water then and passing dryer outside air thru the pad and the air absorbs moisture which cools the air because it absorbs heat energy in order to change water to water vapor. using Ice works to cool the air but it is not effective where evaporative coolers work, Evaporative coolers also require air to be exhausted down stream in order that there is a constant flow of air. Evaporative coolers do not work without fresh dry outside air and in areas of low humidity . in order that water can evaporate it must be liquid, rarely does ice evaporate. I could see using ice or dry ice to cool air in a humid area like a coastal region. but more than likely you will get wet or inhale alot of CO2 with dry ice.

:) Thanks for all the help/info. The answer to my question is right here in my backyard at Bowtie Bob's house. Bob, I will bring my cooler over one of these days and maybe you can explain it to me. Thanks. Stuart

Ice can evaporate, it's called Sublimation, it happens a lot in the north.

Brian

That is why I said rarely........And it takes forever to sublimate a few grams of ice, it also occurs in a freezer section of a
fride. do you know what is the maximum temperature at sealevel that ice sublimates, and what the reason is that it does?... it kind of just ...wastes away....one silly molecule at a time..

Assuming you mean by "at sealevel" one atmosphere pressure, then ice will sublime anytime the vapor pressure of the ice is greater than the partial pressure of the surrounding gas, regardless of the temperature. Discounting super critical states, 32 F. Ice sublimes all the time in cool dry air and everyone in the north knows that ice will "dissappear" over night, even at very low temperatures.

Brian

Yeah, I think you could say that about a one atmosphere of pressure, if it were taken at sea level.

Since my experiance of sublimination is with Iodine and dry Ice, and the icecubes in my Kenmore fridge and the furtherest North I have been is High Level Canada, and I was only there,during the two days of summer they have yearly, my experiance is limited to most of the places in the snow belt I have been in. a couple are Traverse City Michican and Meadsville Pa. where the snow just keeps getting deeper and deeper until the temperature gets above 32 degrees F and it melts. I would suspect that sublimination requires temps well below 32 degrees? Could one could say that snow is made by reverse sublimination, water vapor going directly into ice crystals, or something like that?

I believe it is still referred to as sublimation even if it is from vapor to solid but the rates are entirely dependent on the interfacial conditions, vapor pressure, partial pressure, differential temperature, movement of gas, etc.

Brian

:confused: All I know is that ice melts when it gets warm!! That was proven to me during my year in Greenland 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle, when, on the 4th of July, the temperature got all the way up to +50 and the ice was melting (it also melts when I pour room temperature bourbon over it). I don't understand all this sublimation stuff but does it mean that if a person manages to get ice into his/her swamp cooler and the ice melts, would the cooler then be called a sublimator? Stuart

Very interesting subject, Physics and there are many physical wonders in this old world, let alone the universe........and all of the action boils down to the interaction of only a hand full of different atomic and subatomic particles...and a few rays pushed around by Intelligent design.......

What it means to me is if you want to get cool in an automobile in a hot & humid climate and you would rather not get waterlogged, get refridgerated air!