63-65 chrome oil cap question

[Michael G.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

This may have been already mentioned. Mike. Is you oil tube a repro? The way the cap is installed points to that. John

John, if that question is directed to me, that pic is not my car, so I don't know. The pic is from a very low mileage, original, unrestored, 63 convertible I saw up for auction a few years ago at Mecum's Bloomington Gold auction.

My car has an original cap, but its in storage. I'll try to post a pic of my blue car later today.

[Michael G.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

Here's a very early car with an original cap, note the black fill tube and non-chromed balance tube. Also note that there is the slightest depression in the middle of the cap. Could this be the "dimple" of yore? The cap orientation doesn't seem to be aligned with anything in particular

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[John D.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

Michael, As mentioned a very early 63 would have a black painted cap. Refer to Doug Loeffler post. He has the only pic out of 33 posts here that show an original dimpled cap.
Refer to Dr. Mike McCagh's post also when looking at a cap. Do you have the 'machine" marks on the side? Look at the corners for the cut outs, etc.
I have told all of you everything I know about these caps.
To recap my own thoughts and also several of yours. Don't for a moment think there was one supplier of these caps.
Happy New Year. John

[Michael G.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

John, Since Doug's cap is on a '64, it may not be all that representative of early production '63, but I'll defer to your expertise in identification of it as an original dimpled cap... I don't think there's any hard and fast rules on these caps, it seems that there may have been a few "original" iterations, one of which is dimpled.

The pic I posted this morning (post 32) is Bob Birchmeyer's '63, the #618 car. Perhaps Bob can chime in here (if he looks in...) as to the originality of his chrome cap. His cap did have some pretty heavy die marks.

Regarding chrome vs black: as we've discussed many times here, different chrome items came in at different times, so, I may be wrong, but I don't think there's an absolute "this cap must be black on this car" rule that applies here.

I'll post my cap later, I haven't been to my garage yet...

[John D.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

Mike, All the originl pics of engine compartments that Michael Hanson posted showed a black cap on the early units. All of the ones in Jorjorians collection and other guru's collection all show black caps. (gray would be incorrect)
The 6th edition judging manual doesn't discuss early '63 FI unit oil caps.
Do what you want Mike but originally that cap was black. The truth of the matter is your early unit wouldn't have any chrome at all except for the flag. John

[Michael G.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

Hi All,

The cap on my Duntov car is chrome and, per Michael Hansen's statement below, obviously wrong for a November car, so I won't post a pic here.

Here's Michael's definitive answer on chrome, etc.:

For start of production, the oil cap and tube were coated with semi gloss black. In early November 1962, a decision was made to add chrome parts to the assembly. These changes first appeared in the AIM around mid November. The new parts didn't enter production at the St Louis plant until 3 January, (I have the NPC)
The list of newly added chrome parts included the oil filler tube and cap, dip stick, fuel lines, fuel filter bracket and choke pipe.

Two more items were changed from zinc to chrome on paper around that same time. Two tubes on the FI unit were to be included in the change. One air cleaner to oil filler tube and the other air cleaner to fuel meter. However, since these two tubes were supplied by Rochester, they were included in the FI units that were shipped to the St Louis plant and several were installed on early cars. That means you will see some early 63's with these tubs chrome well before all of the other chrome items were added.

[Timothy B.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

I don't want to detract from the postings on this subject but according to Mike Hansen's post all early 63's even with the low hp engines would have used the painted black cap until January 63, correct??

[Michael G.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

Tim, that's the way I read it...

There has been some past discussion suggesting that it was possible some chrome pieces actually saw the production line before the official introduction date of Jan 3, 1963, and a few largely original cars from that period seem to have some chrome, but, everybody liked to add chrome back then, so, I'm not sure any real data exists. Frankly, I wouldn't change a largely original early car just because it had an odd chrome piece here and there, but if I was restoring one I'd probably not put the chrome on anything built before Jan 3.

I know JD has said that many units got restored over the years with instructions from the owner to put the chrome on ('cause it looks nicer). I know John did my November car's unit (for a different owner) twenty-some years ago and it ended up with chrome. He probably doesn't have records of whether he added the chrome to it ...

[Bob J.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

I don't want to detract from the postings on this subject but according to Mike Hansen's post all early 63's even with the low hp engines would have used the painted black cap until January 63, correct??

Correct, I don't think the chrome cap was released for parts or production until 1-63.

[Mike M.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

this thread got me to checking my stash of spare oil caps as well as the caps on our 5 mid year fuelies. in the spare stash, i have one black with a pronounced depression(Dimple/concavity) . its depressions is significantly deeper and with sharp margins. the spare stash gave up a chrome plated with a depression (but the depression isn't as deep and its margins not as sharply demarcated as the black one). then there was another spare, chromed, with just a hint of a depression but with significant scaring on its sides. then there were a couple of originals with their centers appearing flat. all theses spare ones i'd consider originals, have marked scaring on their sides(part of the stamping process). there are a couple of repos in the spare stash and their centers are flat to convex(just slightly convex). these repos have no scaring from the stamping process on their sides. then i went out to the garage to check on the oil fill capos on our 5 midyears. all five have the stamping process scars, the scars being more noticeable on the caps off the 63 and early 64. the scars become less noticeable on the pair of 65 caps but they are obvious. as far as the centers on the 5 midyear fi caps, the depression is barely noticeable on the late 63 and the mid 64 but the centers of the late 64 and the pair of 65's appears flat in their centers. i'd attribute the depth of scars and the depth of the depressions as due to wear on the part of the dies in the stamping machine. mike

[Bob J.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

IMG_1182.jpgIMG_1181.jpg[QUOTE=John DeGregory (2855);730459]Edward etal, Definitley more than one manufacturer of caps.

Michael Hanson gave you the correct info regarding when the chrome caps (and other chrome parts) entered production.
Hanson also gave you the timeframe of when a dimpled cap was normally seen on original cars, BEFORE everything was restored.

Two pics of a black painted early cap with dimple.
Pics clearly show the ORIGINAL, gasket and ORIGINAL poor quality black paint.

[Joe L.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

[QUOTE=Bob Jorjorian (1619);730726][ATTACH=CONFIG]56968[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]56969[/ATTACH]

Edward etal, Definitley more than one manufacturer of caps.

Michael Hanson gave you the correct info regarding when the chrome caps (and other chrome parts) entered production.
Hanson also gave you the timeframe of when a dimpled cap was normally seen on original cars, BEFORE everything was restored.

Two pics of a black painted early cap with dimple.
Pics clearly show the ORIGINAL, gasket and ORIGINAL poor quality black paint.

Bob------


The "dimple" on this cap is definitely something that was created by an intentional feature of the tooling. However, if the chrome caps had this same sort of "dimple", I don't see any way that re-chroming is going to "obliterate" it.

[Bob J.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

[QUOTE=Joe Lucia (12484);730744]

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Bob------


The "dimple" on this cap is definitely something that was created by an intentional feature of the tooling. However, if the chrome caps had this same sort of "dimple", I don't see any way that re-chroming is going to "obliterate" it.

Joe,
the chrome caps that I have look pretty much the same as the painted one pictured.
On stampings, sometimes dimples looks deeper and sometimes not so deep.
They are easy to spot whether they're painted or chromed.
Bob J

[Michael G.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

Other than the dimple, (which seems to only be on some originals) one difference between the repops and originals seems to be that reproduction caps tend to have significantly less definition at the base of the "dome". The intersection of the dome and the flat surface tends to be fairly sharp on originals, but a very large radius or blend on repops. This can be seen in Dave's earlier post here.

[Mike E.]

Re: 63-65 chrome oil cap question

I found this in my 40-year stash of parts. Who needs it? What's it worth?P1030277.jpgP1030278.jpgP1030279.jpgP1030280.jpgP1030281.jpg