Correct Distributor Cap for 65/396 black or brown?

[James W.]

Hello,

I have a friend that is at the Carlisle meet and has the opportunity to purchase what he beleives to be a correct distributor cap for his 1965 Corvette equipped with a 396/425 engine. He has found a brown distributor cap that reads Delco-Remy PATENT PENDING R. The 1965 NCRS Judging Manual says that all caps were black. The vendor says that they came with a brown cap.

So what is correct for his car? The serial number is 22161 if that makes any difference.

He wants to buy the cap first thing tomorrow morning (Saturday) if the brown cap is correct.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,

James West
Omaha, NE.
NCRS Nebraska Chapter Co-Chairman
Member #18379

[Michael H.]

Re: Correct Distributor Cap for 65/396 black or br

James,

The manual is correct for your friends 65. The original Delco cap should be black with aluminum contacts. The only corvettes that originally came with the brown cap with brass contacts were the 67-69 L-88's. Also, the "R" that was molded into the cap means it's for the resistance system released for the 1969 and later cars.

The brown cap with brass contacts were used in service for many years and are quite common, contrary to what many vendors want you to believe.

[Jim T.]

Re: Correct Distributor Cap for 65/396 black or br

I have an old used brown cap with brass contacts. Used it for years until replacing it with a Accel distirbutor cap.

[Mike M.]

Re: Correct Distributor Cap for 65/396 black or br

agree with mike regarding black pat. pending cap(without R) correct for 396. however, not sure the 67-9 l-88's had brown caps. think they too would have been black. mike

[Duke W.]

Re: Correct Distributor Cap for 65/396 black or br

The TI system off the "12-mile L-88" that I ran on my SWC for several years/ 60K miles had a brown/brass terminal cap.

In 1988 I sold the system to David Burroughs to reinstall on the original vehicle from which it came, and it still had the original brown cap.

Duke

[Duke W.]

PS

For years I was under the impression that all TI systems had the brown cap, but numerous discussions on this forum led me to my current belief that only L-88/ZL-1 engines had them installed as OE, which is why they are so rare.

The Delco CD system that was around for a few years and optional on some Olds and maybe some other GM brand models were originally equipped with red distributor caps.

Duke

[Michael H.]

Re: Correct Distributor Cap for 65/396 black or br

Duke,

I installed that same distributor into the 12 mile L-88 engine during restoration and first test fire and if I remember correctly, it still had the same brown cap on it. Not sure if it's still the same one that's on the car today but it looked very "used" at that time.

I also seem to remember that it no longer had the correct original "373" vacuum advance unit on it? (Possible I'm thinking about the one for the white L-88 car instead?)

[Jack H.]

Re: Correct Distributor Cap for 65/396 black or br

Guess we'd better horsewhip Chuck Berge to change the '68-69 JG book then, because it calls out the brown aklyd, Delco, D310 cap as being factory correct for L88. Yep, gotta rain on Keith Bigger's parade too because his '67 JG says the same thing, Mike!

If you search the archieves, you'll find Joe Lucia did a nice parts history post showing the D310 cap actually BECAME the official GM service replacement part for the black Bakelite D308 cap for a period of time. This may be why they aren't 'impossible' to find....

What IS tough is finding a non-R/Pat Pending version of the brown alkyd D310 cap in decent shape! But, I can tell you I've taken 2-3 of the little devils off scrap yard Olds, Chevy and Buick cars from this period.

[Duke W.]

Re: Correct Distributor Cap for 65/396 black or br

It had the original vacuum can with the cut off nipple! Prior to installing the TI in my car in 1968 I removed the drive gear, vacuum can, and centrifugal weights and springs from my distributor, installed them on the TI distributor, and saved the removed components in a box.

When I removed the TI from my car, circa 1976, after it broke a second time and completed the repair (just some corrosion in the amp connector), I reintalled the original drive gear, centrifugal weights and springs, and vacuum can.

What I shipped to Burroughs was exactly what came off the L-88 including the amp mounting hardware, and the coil bracket that may have been included. I saved everything that I removed or didn't use on my car.

The first failure was circa 1970. One of the main power transistor leads broke off at the board. I stuffing it back in the via, added a drop of solder, and that issue never caused a further problem.

Duke

[Dick W.]

Re: Correct Distributor Cap for 65/396 black or br

Jack, am I missing something? The '68-69 JG states "Delco Remy is printed on the exterior of the cap in raised letters. Original cars are known to have PATENT PENDING or PATENT 2769047 in 1968 and PAT. PENDING R or PATENT 2769047 in 1969. "