7up cooler

[scalebowler]

Got this at an antique store today for $28. Does not look too bad and the inside has no rust in it and the bottom is not rusted through. The lid was smashed in but I got most of it pulled out by holding it down with my feet and pulling up on the handle. Just got a small dent now. It looks like someone has painted it at one time so I am a little worried that I might find some rust under there but it does feel pretty solid so I think it should be ok. Also it does not have the tray inside. I look forward to working on this very soon.

[David D]

nice deal, should look great once re-painted

[loman4ec]

Yep very good deal. I dount you will find rust under it. Usually you would see it under the paint. Sometimes on cars people cover up rust with bondo and you can get some surprises when stripping off paint but I doubt you will find many people doing a lot of body and repair work on a picnic cooler. I think someone repoped the trays but I am not sure. You see them on ebay from time to time. Great find

[cokecolaman]

Nice price!

[MoonDawg]

      Looks like it was painted with a spray can so if you carefully remove the paint from the logos you might find some nice color on them.

[scalebowler]

Thanks guys! I do have a few questions about some of the parts. The first one is are the corner pieces chrome plated or are they stainless steel? They are painted right now so I have no idea but the handles appear to be stainless so I am guessing that they are as well. The other question I have is what is the logo supposed to look like? From what I know I think it was origionally just painted red on the raised parts. Not sure if I will go that way or paint it up a little differently by putting black in the "shadow" of the letters and on the bar at the top and bottom of the logo kind of like the logo on a 7up machine from the same time period. I think that would look pretty cool.

[Kilroy]

 the corner trim on my cooler is polished stainless

[scalebowler]

I stripped the paint off over the logo with some paint stripper and found that the red was all chipped up so I think they just painted it to make it look better to sell. No big deal though since I all ready planned to strip the paint down on it. Going to use some chemical strippers on it since I have heard of the embossing being damaged by a wire wheel on a grinder. I also plan on panting the logo to look more like the embossing on a 7up vending machine since I think it will look pretty good.

[johnieG]

Mine have polished aluminium...& I don't think that suitcase latch holding down the lid is original, seems like the crushed the coolers side flat just to mount it.

[scalebowler]

I was wondering about that latch. Who ever mounted them on there used rivets to hold the lid latches on so I was thinking they were origional but when they blocked the movement of the handle it made me wonder about them. I'm also not a fan of them so I think I might remove them. They did crush a little part to get the latch on but I think I can pop that back out and the other side is fine. I did see that the liner for the lid is not really held in very well anymore so I will need to do some work on that. Maybe have my brother bring it to his metals class and use the spot welder on it.