Parts of the collection from my dad in some of the boxes I’m going through. Don’t know the history behind it but it looks never used or an early take off. My dad owned three huge junkyards, a radiator and auto electric shop and he loved 69 and 70 Oldsmobiles. I can’t say for certain this isn’t a restamp but my dad wasn’t that kind of guy. Can anyone tell me the value???? I know this is not a give away distributor for someone who owns a Hurst Olds….thanks for any input. Open to reasonable offers. Dave

 

I really hate to say it, so I won't. But what bothers me about it is two things:
1) NORMALLY, the alignment of all the part numbers are in a straight line. The 73 by itself looks a bit high and stretched out. Date stamps are different than part number stamps.
2) Many many moons ago, there was a rash of "fake" hi-performance Olds distributors being sold on ebay and the like that were restamps, the 973 especially. They were pretty good fakes too as far as the stamps, but they could be debunked on closer inspection. I would venture to guess your dad didn't do it, but if one of the "fakes" came into his possession...just sayin'.

Wait, ok, make that 4 things:
3) The first 9 looks weird. So does the 3. Doesn't appear to be the same "font" as original. Also, the 3 does not seem to be stamped cleanly. Looks a bit deeper on the bottom side than the top. The date stamps were different fonts on the production units and seemed that they were stamped differently than the part numbers, but in all the examples I recall seeing, the part numbers themselves weren't haphazardly applied.
4) Hard to tell from only 2 pictures, but generally, on a stock distributor, there's more of a ledge above the numbers where the cap fits down. This APPEARS to have a smaller diameter base where the numbers are stamped. Again, hard to tell without closer inspection. Pretty easy to do, I guess. Chuck it in a lathe, take off a few thou, then boom, clean spots to restamp the numbers you want it to be. Not saying this is the case, it just appears suspect to me. Just something about it doesn't look right.

Not going to say it's fake, but I'm not going to give it a clean bill of health, either.

But for the sake of discussion, let's just assume it is a genuine article for a second...

Got a picture from the top?

The 973 also shares the same counter-weights as the Corvette HiPo 327 and certain carbed 427s and 70 Buick performance 455. They're noticably huge. Standard weights aren't correct.

It's possible the April 4, 69 date is correct, but most I've seen are late January manufacture dates. 9A30 comes to mind, but my memory isn't what it used to be. This is the first April date one I believe I've ever seen. Someone with a later-build 69 may know for sure. This one got manufactured a couple weeks after the start of H/O production, so while possible, I find it kind of odd as well. Come to think of it, I don't even remember the date of mine. Additionally, yours doesn't have any red overspray on it. Most originals I've seen had that. Anyone could have cleaned it up though. If it is indeed a correct, NOS one, Katy bar the door on the price tag. To me, just from these two pictures, it still looks used, and very possibly an early take-off at best. It'd be hard to determine without further inspection.

As a points distributor, about the only people that might be interested in paying the price is a 69 H/O owner that wants to restore their car exact. Which means big $$. All I can say is it's a hen's tooth. It was so scarce even when originally produced that they quickly superseded the distributor number for service replacement to the W-32 distributor, 1111989, which I find even rarer than the 973, but also less desirable. I used to have a 989 too and there are differences. At least the weights are "normal sized" on the 989 for sure. I did notice that. Can't recall which vacuum can it used. I've seen someone mention that the 989 is the same as a 1970 979, but I'm not thinking it is. Both are OAI hi-performance distributors, but I think the 979 would be better. JMO. Many many years ago I sold a spare intake and the 989 to Kurt Karch IIRC. I think I sold my spare heads to Jeff M. here on the forum. Again, that was like 20-something years ago or so.

If it's not a restamp, and the vacuum can works, and all the correct, proper parts are there, I'd probably start off with around $5K. That's just my estimate. If it's a fake, I might give you $30 for it.

I'll try to find some pics of my genuine 973 distributor and post them up for a better comparison. Don't even see many pictures of real ones anymore.

Here's a 989. Manufacture date of April 29, 69. Car was purportedly built in May. So a 4/4/69 973 is kinda suspect. But that doesn't really mean anything. Something odd about those "1" numbers being serif font, though. Honestly I can't recall what the numbers looked like on that 989 I used to have.


According to Hurst, their April 7, 69 dated tuneup letter and information still shows it should be a 973 installed in the H/Os. Of course paperwork trails are slow, so that may not mean anything either.

 

Here is my 973 distributor from my HO
GLWS



and the vac advance that was in it MS 427 16

 

Thanks the input guys. Tim, do you happen to have a picture looking at the top down to the counter weights?

Not trying to pass this off as anything it’s not, just looking to verify so I can know whether to put it up for sale or not. Thanks

 

Sorry to say, but I can definitively state it is a re-stamp.
The other 973 distributor can show the differences.
The indents where the lines meet on the 9 7 3 are unique.
The distributor you have just does not have them among several other things incorrect.

 

Hi Dave,
Here is the pic you requested. Lmk if you need anything else.

I have had this since I bought the car in boxes in 1997, so it is in original condition as far as I know.

 

Great pics. Ironically, my distributor has the same manufacture date. Jan 30, 1969. Interestingly, the Hurst tune up specs show the vacuum advance can p/n as 1973418, but AFAIK, the cars should have came with the 427 cans on the 973s. Don't know wtf that was all about.



Note the date stamp font is different than the part number stampings. Also the date stamp floats a bit, not in a real straight line like the part number.





Red overspray engine paint

 

Here is the top view showing the weights on a 69 933 dist

 

As another example here is my 9A 30 and its vacuum advance...

 

??? "indents"??? Please expound.

"...among several other things incorrect"?? Can you provide this info??

 

I think he means where the corners of the top lines 7 and 3 meet with the vertical section. There's like an extra wide cut right in the corner. Plus, the 3 on the "real" distributors has the middle leg pointing somewhat downward at the tip, and as that top, nearly-vertical section is bowed a little bit instead of a straight line. The OP's distributor numbers are missing that. Here's a cut and paste comparison. Kind of obvious when looking at them next to each other. Real H/O distributor stampings on the bottom. OP's distributor stamp on top.



It is hard to discern the "several other things incorrect" as there's only 2 pictures. What vac canister does it have? The huge counter-weight setup? The 148 stamped on top of the main shaft? We haven't seen that yet.

 

In light of the '69 Hurst Olds currently listed on BaT, I think it is worthwhile to bring this thread back to the top.

I have a few comments and a couple of questions regarding '69 H/O distributors.

1. GM distributors were built in batches (as an example, the last batch of Buick Stage 1 distributors had a date of 0F23, and that batch was used on all Stage 1 engines built through 1972 and then they were sold as over-the-counter replacements for several years after), so I don't think it is the least bit ironic that 69HO43's distributor has the same 9A30 manufacture date.

2. Every verified original 973 distributor that I have ever seen has had a 9A30 date code.

3. From the photos posted, all verified H/O distributors from the 973 9A30 through the 989 9D29 had raw cast aluminum stamping surfaces instead of machined stamping surfaces.

My questions are:

1. Are there any known original 973 distributors with a date of manufacture other than 9A30?

2. If so, does anyone have pictures they can post of those distributors?

 

Not to my knowledge. I've only seen 9A30 when I did see them. It's not inconceivable to imagine they may have "built" them all in a single day. Making 1,000 or so distributors in a day isn't a tall order for most of the Delco vendors. It all depended on when they actually stamped the build dates on them. Was it after the assmebly was partially built, completely built, or did they stamp all the designated housings, toss them in a ******* box or something and wait until they actually assembled the unit for real? I'm sure to most of the distributor manufacturers they could care less if it was a specialty car unit or not. "Place part A onto Part B and install mounting screw. Seated and not stripped" was their emotional involvement. I'm sure most didn't care on January 30, 1969. Eight and the gate, unless there was overtime. Usually, automotive history isn't recognized until well after the fact.

I've worked in plants where "custom, one-off" requirements were ordered and because of set-up differences, it only made sense to do the custom setups ONCE, do all the stuff for the request in a batch or batches to get it when the customer needed it, then reconfigure back to "normal production."

Regardless on how they did it, there was a method to the madness, for sure. At this point, if you see a 973 with a date not even close to Jan 30, I'd be suspect of it.

I know it's not the same exact comparison, but Rochester pumped out over 3,000 Quadrajet carburetors in 2 day period in early June 1984 using the 84 H/O casting just so they could restamp the year number to a "5" over the 4 for use in the then-upcoming VIN 9 442 engine. It was an ugly restamp with a capital UGLY. I have an NOS 84 H/O carb and a factory 85 442 carb and both were "built" on the same day. I guess they learned their lesson with what a PITA restamping was so the 87 442 carb wasn't restamped from an 1986 442 as they both used the same number . To note, all 1985 442 carbs non-production had the "correct" year stamping in the number. This is one of those unique situations where a restamped carb is factory-correct. EDIT to add: I've seen many factory 85 442 carbs and have only seen two dates of production. So the 3,000 number is simply an extrapolation. There could be other dates, but I haven't seen one or know about one.

 

Part identification begins when something is made differently. If the housing can be used on multiple applications, it would get stamped only when it is assembled to a point it is different and is probably the first step in the process. That's ideal. It could be that they are going to do a run of them, so they all get selected from the inventory, stamped, then built immediately and however long it takes after.

 

I am only guessing, but I suspect Delco made a batch of 500 9A30 distributors.

My theory is that Oldsmobile ordered 500 973 distributors which were produced on January 30th. As the supply of distributors began to run low, Oldsmobile ordered a second batch with a slight spec change. On April 29th that second batch was produced as 989 distributors.

While this is only a single case, what I offer as evidence of that theory is the survivor race car that was recently for sale (VIN 380372). That car should have been about Demmer car number 525, and it has a 989 distributor.

It would be interesting to hear from other later production Hurst Olds owners to try to pinpoint where the changeover occurred and to see if other manufacturing dates are out there.

 

Good theory. But we'll never know for sure. I've seen no "official" paperwork or change notices or drawings or anything notating a change in distributor part numbers. Stranger things have happened. Another theory is they made more than 500 to cover two applications. What about the W-32? I've never seen a survivor W-32 car's distributor, so I don't know.

My question would go with the survivor cars that were built in mid-May roughly that had 989 or 973 distributors. My theory is that there could have been a mix and match party at the engine assembly as well. Also, some parts were put into parts inventory systems as soon as sales started as well for warranty support, so there could have been some 973s on the parts shelves before they even started making 989s. Maybe. Never seen an NOS one of either kind, although we do know the 989 was listed in the parts catalogs for H/O and W-32 use. Does this also mean that the handful of W-32s, which also used the 989, were also made in May 69 or after? In other words, did they not make the W-32 in batches? Or just make them as ordered? The Oldsmobile launch letter for the W-32 said it would be available for production later in the week of January 20, 1969. The letter also just mentions "New Ignition Distributor" but not the 973 specifically. The closest I've seen is the 973 listed in the W-machines tuning guide for the W-32.

Interestingly, the 989 doesn't seem to be quite as an agressive timing curve as the 973 and uses smaller centrifugal weights than the 973. I'm wondering why the need for a change in May? GM did and still does stupid stuff that sometimes nobody understands, even the people involved. Could have been a convenience factor.

 

I have always read that the 989 was used on later production H/Os, but I have never seen any factory documentation specifying either the 973 or 989 for H/O production.

The previously mentioned survivor car is the only one I have seen with a 989 distributor, but it seems to confirm that those distributors were used in production.

Obviously both distributors were manufactured for use on some vehicle. Was the 973 designated for the H/O while the 989 was slated for the W-32, or was the 973 intended for both cars with a revision that updated both to the 989?

I would guess that there is (or at least was in the past) Oldsmobile documentation that tells the story.

 

I have a survivor w32, distributor 973, 9B18. I have also, a 69 H/O that has a 935, 9E2. I also remember a member who had the same date 935 H/O discussed on here several years ago. I couldn't find it but maybe he'll chime in. I'm the 2nd owner of the H/O I purchased in 1992 when I didn't know about the distributor. It had the heads and manifold that most of us know about.

 

Pics?

 

I would love to see pictures of the distributors from both of your cars. Also, if you are willing to share, what are the production dates for both of your cars?

Does your 973 9B18 distributor look similar to the distributor installed in the BaT H/O? The distributor in the BaT car appears to have a machined stamping surface, which I do not think became part of the manufacturing process until very late in the 1969 calendar year.

 

doing some exhaust work on the 32, when it's off the lift I will get pictures.

 

No! My distributor does not look anything like that. The numbers should be on rough cast housing. My carb, alt, steering box etc. is within 10 days of each other. The engine is Feb 11 my cowl is 03A. The H/O on BaT is funky the more I look at it. The cowl tag looks off center!?

 

Thank you for that confirmation.

Since the distributor on the BaT H/O is supposedly from the same manufacturing date/batch, I would expect it to look similar to your distributor.

 

Hurst tuning sheet from April 7, 1969 shows it as 973. That's good enough for me.

 

I have seen that. Hell, I have it my binder. Sometimes forgetting is easier than it should be.

 

973 distributor and the H/O is still installed. I'll get it out, next day or two and get pic #s

 

Thank you for the pictures! That helps a bunch.

Your pics confirm that the BaT distributor is most definitely a restamp and also confirms that there are at least two batches of 973 distributors.

I wonder if any other batches exist?

 

One of my 1969 H/Os vin# 392757 has the 1111989 Distributor with date codes: Car 05C data tag and Distibutor 9D29. Pictures if needed. It is original and still has red paint on it. It does not have the odd weights or the ms427 vacuum advance. Car is not in Demmer list but very well documented including window sticker. Information for determining date of switch from 1111973 distributor. Hope this helps.

 

I also own a well documented '69 H/O which falls into the range of cars for which Demmer documentation has not yet been found.

According to my calculations your car would likely be approximately vehicle number 792 if the missing documentation is ever found.

It would be helpful to add photos of your distributor to help document the switch from 973 to 989 distributors.

 

MS 427 16



Data plate of H/O

 

Awesome information. Would you happen to know what number your car is from the H/O registry?

 

My car is not in Demmer Registry but is estimated to be around car 792 Demmer if ever found. I purchased the car in 1974 from brothers who bought it new. Have all documentation on car including 318 dash plaque, warranty registration from selling dealer, proteco plate, hurst purchase option, and even the Original Window sticker. Took car apart in 1980s to restore and never got time to do the job. Thinking about selling car and all rare parts, (Missing original trans) Data Tag: 05C May 3rd week.