I know this is kind of wordy but I wanted to tell the whole story incase something I've overlooked might be causing the problem.

I went on my first long road trip last weekend since I've owned my bus (1970 VW Campmobile type 1). It was to Merlefest in NC about a 7hr drive. The reason I mention this is because on my way home one of the aluminum slinky like houses that come off the fan housing and run to the heat exchanger came loose and my motor starting getting really hot. I stopped every 1.5 hrs to gas up (gas gauge doesn’t work) and give everything a quick run through.  I noticed the hose and was able to stretch and fix it but after that I noticed it started idling a little rough and was having trouble starting. I made it home and on Monday I was able to fire it up and let it run but it took me awhile to get it started. I had to have someone crank it while I played with the throttle cable on the carb. I was off work today so I thought I would adjust the timing and make sure the points where not sticking. I've read its better to do this when the motor is cold (my John Muir Guide). I pulled the distributor cap off and the points where fine so I turned the flywheel and adjusted the distributor and now it won't start.  I pulled the gas line off the carb and fired a few times and I'm getting gas. I also pulled a spark plug wire off cranked and was getting sparks. I took of the oil air filter so I know I'm getting air.  I'm not sure what I'm missing. Does anybody have any ideas?

What was the last thing you did that killed it ?    Thats where I would start looking to see if you jerked a wire off the coil or something. How did you set the timing and did you mess  with the points ?  You have a 009 dist. so it doesn't matter if the engine is hot or cold to set the timing.
      Without looking at the van its hard to figure out what you have going on.
     If you are not sure of what you are doing you need to get some hands on help . Setting the timing wrong could get you in serious trouble with this air cool stuff
     I bet you will find something around the dist.

I've set the timing before and the points are spaced correctly. I noticed the problem with it idling on my long drive back home. This is also when I started having trouble with getting it started. My gut "feeling" is that something happened to the motor when it got hot on my way back home. It was blistering hot and I burnt my hand on the dipstick. I was fully aware that this was BAD so I let cool down for about an hour and laid a bag of ice on the ground near the motor(since it was still about 95 degrees outside Sunday). I made sure not to cool it to fast because I didn't want anything cracking. I let the engine cool off for about an hour and reattached the hose and went on my way. I've started it twice since then and it was difficult. It sounds like its rolling over and I know I have sparks-gas-air so I think the valves could be it. It sounds kind of like a cold engine rolling over in the morning but it just won't fire. I've got some instructions from my idiots' guide about checking the valves. I'm about 1/3 accountant, 1/3 engineer, 1/3 redneck so I'm going to give it a try and see what happens. If I'm still at a lost any suggestions on who I should bring it to? Or would anybody be interested in stopping by Redbank and taking a look?

Oh I forgot change your oil...NOW! If it got that hot your oil is no longer usefull.

I think it is time to haul that thing to someone and quit beating your selve up on the forums and getting a 100 reasons why it doesn't run.  I have stopped doing house calls unless they are really close to me because I never can bring enough "stuff" to repair anything. If I don't have a clue really makes it hard to know what to bring.
       I would take it to R-M (Rick) on Highway 58 . He is closer to you and he is a member of the club and is VW savey.  He could find the problem pretty fast I think.  I would have him do a compression test to be on the safe side considering that you found tight valves and depending on the history/age of the engine anything less than 105 lb  on the low side would tell me you might be headed for trouble like dropping a valve. Not good.

Im with David call R&M so you can get to the bottom of it all.

At some point I got my wires crossed on the distributor with the number one and two cylinder.

If you can get them to admit it, most folks who have worked on their own car have done the exact same thing at one time or another.   :oops:  But of course, I've never done it . . .  :wink:      
 :lol:

Well I gave up and took it to R&M Automotive as suggested. They checked the compression and at the number one cylinder was low. . . but as I suspected it was something simple. At some point I got my wires crossed on the distributor with the number one and two cylinder. It never fails that the simple things end up causing days of work. I appreciate everybody’s insight.

What were the compression readings ? Just curious.