[John V.]

I looked thru some old threads some of which I posted in and have long forgotten.

In them, it was established that the O.E. coils were:

1964 - 1115187 for non-TI
1965 - 1115214 for non TI
1966 - 1115037 for non-TI

The primary and secondary resistance specs for all 3 coils were identical.

The coil top will show the Delco Remy script and the can will be embossed with the last 3 digits of the full p/n and below that 12V.

None of this is new information. However, I have been dealing with what I believe is a failing Delco Remy (but not original) coil in my '64. I've been searching to see what coil I might choose to replace it with. I might like a 187 coil in usable condition but likely will go with a quality modern replacement.

In the process of researching, I think I have confirmed what I have believed for some time, that is, the O.E. coils were furnished to the Car Assembly Divs complete with the mounting bracket. As a consequence, the O.E. coils carried an "assembly" p/n.

Service Replacement coils were listed in the MPCs by p/n but were serviced without the mounting bracket so that one service coil could service many original p/n coils by the expediency of reusing the original mounting bracket when replacing the coil.

In the case of the 3 listed coils, the MPC shows that they were all serviced by p/n 1115134. In fact the 134 coil serviced additional Model Years for Pontiac.

As an aside, I find it humorous that guys will pay big money for an NOS Service Replacement coil and in many cases, believe that the SR coil is "nos. matching" when in fact PMD never serviced the coils marked with the O.E. coil p/n since the mounting bracket was separately serviced.

In my attempt to learn more about original coils I searched around the net.

The coil in my car is a 1115244. In addition to the partial p/n marking of 244, it shows BR under that and no 12V marking.

Nobody seems to know what the BR means.

After reviewing the Delco coil history and then seeing modern replacements marked to indicate the need to have an external Ballast Resistor it occurred to me that the BR was to indicate the need for an external Ballast Resistor for Delco coils so marked. BR would mean Ballast Resistor or perhaps Ballast Required. Either way, these coils were expected to be used with an external Ballast Resistor or Resistance Wire.

Does anybody have any info to confirm my supposition?

The coil history for Delco shows that GM used a 6V ignition thru 1954.

In 1955, pretty much across the board, GM went to a 12V ignition.

It is unclear to me if the change to 12V resulted in a change to the Delco Remy coils or if they simply added an external resistor. Maybe somebody knows.

Then I've read that sometime during the '63 model year, another change may have been made at which point "a resistance unit was required". I'm not really sure how that was different from '55-'63. Anybody know that answer?

At some point after the '66 O.E. coil, Delco appears to have stopped embossing 12V on the coils and instead, most of them (I'm unaware of an exception) embossed them with BR (it seems later still, it shows B-R).

No idea if they were still servicing 6V application coils at that time but I'm thinking it was useful to differentiate the coils so marked as needing an external resistor for whatever reason.

And modern coils still identify that fact today.

Interested what you guys think about my BR interpretation.

[george kujanski]

Sounds reasonable.

george