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While scrolling on social media one day, we found a video detailing how to restore a degas bottle for a Mustang, which really resonated. Step 1: Remove from the car. Step 2: Throw it in the garbage. Step 3: Replace it with something better. Why go through the trouble of making an eye-sore slightly less terrible? And the older the vehicle, the worse it ages and the worse the design of it. They get yellow, brittle, and unattractive from the start.
Every time we looked into Project Magneto’s engine bay, my eye was immediately drawn to the factory S550 degas bottle/coolant expansion tank. It was time to take action.
The Moroso coolant expansion tank (PN 63806) fits all S550 Mustangs – 2015 to 2023 – and is constructed from aluminum. The fittings are billet aluminum and TIG welded. It uses all the factory connections and mounts in the stock location with an OEM cap (or the aftermarket cap of your choosing).
Although our 90,000-plus-mile 2018 Mustang GT isn’t exactly a show car, that doesn’t mean we had to drive it for eternity with fugly parts. (Have a little pride, man!) There are a few different aftermarket options on the market to replace the factory coolant expansion tank, but we admired the sleek design of the fabricated aluminum version from Moroso (PN 63806). There is something about Moroso’s dime-laying that speaks to us and this build. But the one thing that really grabbed us was that it came in a natural finish. We didn’t want polished or another flat black thing in the engine bay. We wanted to color-match it to the Magnetic Gray paint.
I brought the Moroso tank to my local powdercoat shop in Magneto, so that we could color match Magnetic Gray to their book of samples in the sunlight.
Install It In An Hour
When the tank arrived, we could tell it benefitted from sturdy, billet aluminum hose fittings. The tank feels substantial yet still light. The rail that mounts to the radiator is significantly thinner than the factory degas bottle, which we later realized would require shorter bolts. We aren’t sure if these came in the kit and we accidentally threw them out, but thankfully we dipped into our treasure trove of spare bolts for the car and all worked out.
Removing the factory S550 coolant expansion tank is a matter of unbolting it from the radiator shroud with a 10mm socket and employing child labor to release the spring clamps and slide the hoses off the sides and bottom. I DO NOT recommend using regular pliers like this. It is particularly problematic on reinstallation (more on that later).
Besides a socket for the two bolts that secure it, radiator hose clamp pliers are a necessity. We got away with regular pliers initially but when we went to reinstall the bottom hose on the new tank, we quickly realized that squeezing the pliers while pushing the hose on wasn’t possible. After a quick trip to the auto parts store for some radiator-hose pliers, and holy cow it was much easier not only to keep constant pressure on the clamp, but they grip the clamp perfectly.
Removing and reinstalling the bottom coolant hose line is particularly challenging (near impossible) if you do not have radiator hose pliers. Not only do they grip perfectly, but they also hold the clamp so that you can slide the hose on/off the nipple. The first time you use them, you will wonder why you even tried without it. Trust us. Once the bottom one is done, you can do the top two.
Post-install, we are pleased with the fit and finish of the Moroso tank. It looks great, especially with the durable powder coat (We slipped many a time trying to use the pliers and managed to not ruin the finish). The only negatives were that between this tank and the VMP supercharger, the Ford Performance passenger-side air-oil separator does not fit. We’ll get that fixed later (VMP offers one designed to go with its kits), but in the meantime please excuse the zip-tie work.
Since the mounting rail on the Moroso tank is much thinner than the factory unit’s mount, shorter bolts are required. We located these in a bag of spare bolts from this car. Though we have no idea of their origins, they did the trick.
Our preference is also to replace the factory spring clamps with the Gates PowerGrip heat-shrink clamps like VMP uses on the intercooler inlet/outlet and replace the two bolts with something like Eddie Motorsports billet washers if possible. We may also ditch the factory cap. But that’s for another day. It’s time to finish getting ready for the track! We’ve got a date with a 9-second time slip.
Don’t mind the hastily installed air-oil separator (I wanted to make sure there was no oil getting into the intake for our final track date). The install didn’t take long and wasn’t terribly expensive, but it made a huge difference. We ordered some heat shrink clamps to match those on the blower and we might hit those bolts with some black paint for some cheap fixes to cap it off. Let us know what you think!
