I needed to replace my dist. clamp, so i mark everything take it all apart. and just before i pulled the dist out i NOTED not marked the direction of the roter, ok. I get and install the new dist. clamp, installed the dist. I should mention that when i had the dist. out i did turn the shaft a few times, i pointed the rotor in the direction i thought it was in and hooked everything up, got in the car, tried to start it, and NOTHING. Engine cranks, but no vroom. then i thought i hooked up dist. leads wrong, so i switched them, tried to start the car again, crank but no fire. Walked to rear of car and smelled plastic melting. Removed dist. cap and noticed the sticker on the ignitor was shriveled and charred a little. Did i do that by swithching the leads, or could there be another problem further up the line? Thank you.
sorry i should also mention the motor in my bug is an early 70 AE, with an aftermarket pointless dist.
You may have fried the ignitor. I have no idea. You’ll have to test it now to see if it is sending the coil a signal.
But, I think the ignition timing is off. It always is after you pull a distributor. But, even if you were close, it should have fired up or close to it. Now, you’ll have to find TDC on the compression stroke for the #1 cylinder. The best way I found to do this is to remove the valve cover on the #1 cylinder side, rotate the crank to TDC, and make sure both valves are closed. If one or both look to be opening or closing, you need to rotate the crank one more revolution. Then, make sure the rotor is pointing to the spark plug wire for the #1 cylinder. You may need to tweak the distributor to get it to fire up, and then use the timing light to set the base timing.