When you say "removed the plug from the coil and no fire. Are you talking about the coil wire from the center of the cap or are talking about the little wire (should be a green wire if you have OEM Bosch "stuff ". This is what we call the condenser wire and this wire has to be connected to the negative term . on the coil. Pull the coil wire from the center of the Dist.cap and hold it about 1/4 inch from a good ground and have someone crank the engine over. If you have a good spark there, plug it back end and then pull one of the spark plugs out of the cap and hold it about 1/8" from the hole that you pull the wire out of. You should have a spark there going between the wire and the cap. If not I would take a look at the Ing points.  Be sure to hold the wire on the rubber part of the wire and not on any wire end.  You could get a surprise.
      Nothing scientific here and there are other ways to check all of this,but if you don't  have a lot of tools to work with this would be a good "shade tree" method to start with.
      As far as buying new electrical stuff buy only Bosch brand . And for God sake ,DO NOT use any Auto-Zone stuff.
      Check all this and get back to us and we will talk Further .
    BE SURE YOU DON"T HAVE ANY GAS LEAKS IN THE ENGINE COMP.

The standard Bosch coil has a internal res.   Thats the one you need. Now do the plug wire trick by pulling one of the plug wires out of the cap ,hold it about 1/8" from the cap to the wire. Crank the engine over. No spark ?  Look at your points.
       I re-read you post again. Try this. If you have a test-light connect it to the pos. side of the coil . Turn the switch on and the light should come on. Then go to start and if the light goes out you may have a Ing switch problem.
       Remember you are down there and I'm up here so I'm flying in the dark


 :lol:  :lol:

Hey Ret. Bugtech,

Tried the trick you suggested. Placed the tester on the pos from the coil, had someone crank it and the light did not go out.
Checked the plugs and they all looked good, but I am still not getting any power coming from the coil to the distributor.
checked all the wires made sure all were connected. those that looked kinda frayed, i replaced the push connectors on the end of the wire and made sure they were connected properly

Any more thoughts? If i don't get it started tomorrow I think i am going to go ahead and have it towed to the shop. i hate that because i bet it is something simple.

Any more suggestions as always is greatly appreciated.

Katrina

Yes it's getting fuel. I got my first VW at the age of 15. It was a time for many years that I did all the repairs myself. I got out of the garage and into the board room and have forgot how these things work. I am only going to tinker with it another day then I will tow it into the shop.
I have more tools than the tool store so whatever it is if I can just pin point it I am sure I can fix it but having a hard time narrowing down why it won't start.

I will let you no the outcome.

Thanks for all your help.

Katrina

Ok , If your car is a auto-matic or auto- stick it would have a neutral safety switch. If that was bad the starter would not work at all. You would turn the Ing switch to start mode and nothing would happen

Got car back from the shop. Car running great. He replaced the rotor, points, condenser, and plugs. I guess I didn't check them as thouroughly as I thought.

Now I have a broken vent wing window. The repair shop blames the tow truck driver, the tow truck driver blames the repair shop. Anywhoo...I got a replacement glass for $5 form a VW grave yard but have no clue how to put it in. Any helpful tips are appreciated.

Katrina