Why is my 340 distributor clamp copper plated? Are all 340's like that? Were they painted over any other color? I thought I was just cleaning off some old engine grease and it was down to the copper coating?

my 73 340 was that way too

Not painted

I've got about 3 or 4 hold downs. One of them is copper and has old blue paint on it. I don't know if it's the one that came on my 318 or not.

I have a few off of early 70's 318's, and most are copper plated. Some have blue overspray as well. The distributor off the same engine also had blue overspray at the base.

I just went and had a look at the original 318 to my car. It still had the distributor clamp/bolt on it. I was curious so I scraped the grime off of it. It's copper plated and there are no signs of blue paint.

I know this is an old post but thought I'd tell my findings anyway.

When we pulled the original dist out of my brothers 71 duster 318 it was copper plated( 1st I'd ever heard of that btw) and the bolt was yellow zinc di-chromate plated.

Sorry, I don't have any pictures