I was browsing Reddit earlier and on the front page someone had posted a slide show of a “making-of” book in celebration of the 30th anniversary. The post is here. I had never seen this book in its entirety before and something interesting caught my eye. I came across a drawing schematic of Ecto-1 and noticed this:
Particularly this piece is what I am inquiring about.
The drawing has this part listed as a marine radome. Google searched for vintage marine radome and I get some pretty interestingly close results when it comes to submarines. Now, I don’t know if this part has been identified yet. Not too long ago I remember reading that the community consensus was that this was a fabricated piece. It’s looking like it might possibly be a direction-finding antenna w/ a radome cover made for a submarine (mini-sub?). I wasn’t able to pull up any other info for it in the forums, so I am inquiring about it here. Anyone know more about this part?
The drawing also lists the scope/sniffer as a “T.V. antenna,” and I’ve never seen a tv antenna that is made up of two adjacent hollow tubes.
While the part on the car definitely LOOKS like a marine radar, would be amazed if the radome you found was smaller than a few feet tall. Even today’s consumer marine radars aren’t compact enough to be the ~6-inch piece used on the Ecto.
I guess that’s what the original intent for the part was supposed to be, but I believe I may have identified exactly what this part is made from.
Here is a picture of the radome before the cars restoration provided by the site.
Take a good look just underneath the lowest red sticker stripe and you’ll notice a weld line. To the left and below the weld line going to the base of the radome, you’ll notice that the outlining shape starts to come in.
Now for the reveal!
This is basically an A-6 aviator oxygen tank that has been cut a few inches above the halfway weld, painted white and welded to the base of the rack frame. It’s the exact same size and shape as the A-6 oxygen tank. It makes complete sense to do this instead of sourcing a totally different part. The weld is what gives it away. Now, the weld line isn’t as prevalent after the restore because the red sticker tape was lowered and now runs along the weld line, covering most of it up. However, it’s still there. Here is a comparison:
Simple, yes. The devil is in the details. What do you guys think?
First, here it is, as is, off the car. The radome itself is 5 inches wide by 8 inches high.
Second,…compared to an A-6
Sobering, right? Even Robocop is like,…“Whoa!”
What I did was get the proper diameter ABS pipe, and a corresponding acrylic cap from a local plastics place.
I assembled it, painted it, polished it and molded it..
After which I took another piece of ABS pipe, shopped off a 2 inch high piece, fit it into the mold, poured resin and slush cast the final piece. The resin bonded to the ABS which acts as a uniformly thick “collar” which is great for mounting.
I don’t want to be the bad guy here when I put this into words, but I still don’t see any valid proof that debunks my claim. Here is what I am talking about:
The ruler itself doesn’t provide any real measurements. It’s just to show that both tanks are in relative scale to each other and that they don’t significantly differ from each other. If anything, the A-6 is closer in the picture than the raydome and technically should be noticeably bigger if what you guys all claim is true.
That’s a building!?! I thought it was some sort of weird filter or louvers attached to the top of the TI box. So those tall things aren’t antenna’s? You mean they’re just lights?
The oxygen bottle and Radome are practically on the same plane in that photo.
They look the same size to me.
EDIT:
Overlaying them makes it more obvious.
The Oxygen bottle is just a hair bigger when you overlay them, which would be expected since the Radome is a few inches behind the plane of the oxygen bottle.
Sean, where did you get your measurements? How sure are you that they were accurately done? Your radome does look a little on the small side to me.
The only part that might not add up is the curve of the end (the radius) looks a bit different. But that might just be the contrast to the background.
Yes is look the sames but is not ,here somes pictures with measuring to compare and the Radome accurate pattern hope this will help you .
The A-6 aviator oxygen tank measuring is 5 5/8 " OD
The A-6 aviator oxygen tank measuring is 13 7/8 " Long
Kris karlsson (gb4evers) made this Radome pattern review measuring take from the original ecto-1 in 2011 .
I know many old timer ecto-1 builder like V-71 and others including my self made the radome 5" OD and 8" hight remember we didn’t have the accurate measuring available and do not access to the real car in those old days we have to figure everything out.
Today is verry easy to get those ecto-1 equipment info but the hard thing is still to find a 1959 Miller Meteor .
How did Kris measure the dome back in 2011? Can the discrepancy in measurements between the dome and tank be explained by the difficulties in measuring the dome in the wild?
I agree kingpin - when Thiago measured the car way back when it was in dallas promoting the game, I don’t believe he was able to measure it because it was too high to reach, or something along those lines.
My vote is for the A6 tank, unless someone can provide a pic of their tape against the actual radome to prove that wrong.
I was able to actually get on a step stool (luckily I’m pretty tall) to measure the radome. The measurements were taken right from the radome and how it correlates with the radome base. To make sure there was no margin of error, I measured the bottom of the base from side to side and then subtracted the space between the OD of the radome and the OD of the base. I don’t have pictures of the tape measuring due to the lack of available hands… Now The 3/8" isn’t much of a difference, The bottom of the A-6 tank would be a suitable Radome. the 3/8" could just be built up paint. We have no clue how many layers are under there, there is a chance that they are the one and the same…
I didn’t know that kriss take the measured from the bottom of the base from side to side ,now I do undertsand the radome base with the welding could be the 3/8 " extra now I think that the radome could be matching the A-6 thank .
