Couldn't They Make It More Complicated?

[David Greenlees]

Hot water or steam vaporizer?

[TXGOAT2]

It might be a boiler/steam injector for use with kerosene fuel. Or maybe someone put a marine engine in their car. Or maybe it's just an exhaust manifold heater with a carb heat attachement.

[Bryant]

Kinda looks like it’s going thru the firewall. Maybe a heater of some sort?

[jiminbartow]

The way the head appears to be hollowed out at the same curvature of the long cylinder, the cylinder and head were likely made for eachother. Though it was obviously an early Model T accessory, I have no idea what it does, unless… I used to spray water into the carburetor of my 1974 Camaro to clean the cylinders of carbon. If I had to guess, I would guess the the tank is equipped with 4 adjustable injectors. One to each cylinder to inject a spray of water into the cylinders to keep the cylinder free of carbon. The long cylinder, positioned close enough above the head to heat the water, would provide hot, finely atomized spray injected into each cylinder to blow out the carbon. There appears to be a valve fitting just forward of the carb with a control rod through the firewall allowing the driver to open a butterfly valve, in order to direct some of the intake air into the long cylinder allowing the injection of water into the cylinders, when desired. Jim Patrick