Type 1 stock 1600 has been starting fine since I installed it a couple of weeks ago. Went to start it today and the motor turns over fine. It sounds like it even tries to start but just doesn't make it. Working on this alone so I can't check for spark and turn the ignition at the same time. Again, it sounds like it's going to run so I think it is getting fire but it stops as soon as I let go of the key. Suggestions?
 

Yep. Sounds like a bad switch.  The original 72 and up ignition switches last 20 - 30 years or more . . . if you get a couple of years out of a replacement, you're doing good.  I've had tons of them that would "start" and then die as soon as you let the key go to the run position.

I may be dreaming here, but I'm sure he'll chime in and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was Ret.Bugtech that once told me the switch for the early water-cooled stuff was the same part as the 72 and up Beetle switch, but due to the way they were wired, the water-cooled stuff didn't carry near as much current.  So, eventually, the contacts were changed (cheapened) . . . and they worked fine on the water-cooled, but the amout of current across the contacts on the air-cooled burns the cheaper contacts up fairly quickly.  Again, I may have dreamed that up . . . or someone else may have told me that and I'm just thinking it was David.

At any rate, it may work turning it with a screwdriver because of the extra pressure of pushing in and twisting that you don't have when actually turning the switch with key.

I am sure I've heard that somewhere . . . I guess I thought it was Ret.Bugtech because IF that's true, I can't think of anyone else who would have know AND that I would have listened to.      I don't know . . . maybe I read it somewhere.  Maybe I dreamed I read it somewhere . . . 

At any rate, it still sounds like a bad switch.  And speaking from experiance, the replacements don't last long.  When I was driving a 72 or later type 1 as a dalily driver, I always carried an extra belt and an extra switch.

Please don't hold the key in start position more than a few seconds if the engine runs as your starter motor will be turning about a Zillion RPMS Not good

Not good indeed!  A few years back I had a 69 Beetle that I installed a rebuilt starter and a new bushing on.

A couple of weeks later I was driving from work in Chickamauga to Ft. Oglethorpe.  Not long after I pulled out on to 27 I started hearing this high pitched squeal.  I got louder and louder and about a quarter mile into the battlefield, it got real loud, real fast and then all at once the back tires locked down.  I put it in neutral and pushed it out of the road.  The engine was locked down tight.  I figured the engine had spun a bearing or something.

I got it towed home and pulled the engine out . . . and it wasn't locked!?!     I took it to a friend of mine that had a test stand, and it ran fine, had good oil pressure and wasn't making any strange sounds.      I turned the input shaft on the transmission and went through all the gears with the wheels in the air . . . everything seemed fine.    I stuck the engine back in and it was locked up.    I pulled it out and it wasn't locked up.     Then I noticed the starter gear was stuck in the enguaged position.  It was the starter that was locked up.