Ignition Depression

[jfrmach]

I found the problem. I and a friend spend a couple of hours with a wiring diagram and could not find a problem last night. After buttoning things up for the night I thought of something that turned out to be the problem:

The aftermarket Mallory shutter-wheel rotor is a tight fit. When I installed it, it was tight enough that I thought it had bottomed, but it needed to go down another 3/16" or so and was not engaging the notch on the distributor shaft. As a consequence, the rotor appeared to turn OK with the cap off but, when the cap was on, the rotor hung up at the nearest terminal. My guess is that the slight motion of the rotor when the key was turned and let off from the start position caused it to fire, giving me spark then, but not while cranking.

Once the rotor was turned to the proper alignment and pushed down far enough to engage the notch, the car fired up instantly.

The moral, besides don't be stupid is to pay attention to aftermarket parts. Nothing wrong with the part, per se, it just didn't behave like a stock rotor and fooled me.

I think the original problem was caused by my melted ignition switch connector. The rotor problem was my own doing.