The mechanic said he had to pour gas in it and I trusted his word. I just put a new resistor on it today thinking that was the issue, but no luck. As far as I can tell, it isn't getting spark other than when it's cranking, so something wired wrong maybe?

 

How many pick-up coils are in the distributor? You can tell by how many 2 wire connectors come out of the distributor. Do you have power to the positive side of the coil when in the run position?

 

It only has one pickup in the dist. I'll go check the voltage at the coil and let you know.

 

I have voltage at the coil with the ignition on. I'm reading 10.14v at the coil, so pokes a hole in the idea of the switch being bad. Where do I go next?

 

have you tried playing with the timing? i know you switch ignition system but since you have not been able to keep it running the timing might be off.

 

I reset it to zero (tdc'd the #1 cyl on comp stroke) and still zilch. I had to rotate the all wires on the cap over one spot (1 is where 8 goes and so forth) since the vac advance hits the oil pressure sending unit (giving me no room to adjust) with it set as original. I double checked the timing when I dropped the new dist, but I suppose triple checking can't hurt any.

 

i would still try turning it left or right and seem if it sounds better since the timing is probably suppose to be something like 8* BTDC.

 

Be aware that the ignition switch supplies voltage through two separate contacts inside the ignition switch and two separate wires to the resistor block depending on the ignition switch position. What is the voltage reading at the resistor (both sides) with the ignition in the run position?

 

It's at around 10.14 at the coil with the key in the run position.

 

Well when I got the 10.14v at the coil, I hadn't tried to start it yet so the resistor was cold. I cranked it over a couple times, retested the voltage with the res. hot and now I only have 1.2v at the coil! I have the full 12v on one side of the resistor, but just 1.2v on the other. So it seems I got a bad resistor out of the box. I called the parts store and they've ordered me another new one, so I guess we'll see if it's good this time.