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Ok, everyone. SUCCESS! And what was it? The damned points. On a lark, I replaced the points with a set that had been on the car before last winter. They look fine- just a little bit of pitting on the contacts but perfectly workable. I swapped those in, and wouldn't you know it, the car FIRED RIGHT UP! I have no idea what was wrong with the old points. Well, they were brand new in the winter, and the car worked with them back then. I see nothing obviously wrong with them- the usual tests come out fine (no continuity open, continuous closed) so beats me. Both old and new points were Bosch. In fact, everything in the ignition system is Bosch. All in all, I only spend $46 in parts to diagnose this (new cap and rotor- the old cap was a little cruddy anyway) and a coil from Jim (which I think is a bit better than my old one anyway). The old parts will make for good spares. This car never liked starting cold, even after I installed the fuel system priming switch. Now, she starts like a new car. After the car was all set, I timed it per the specs in the Bentley. I left the dwell angle at 46degrees. Stupid me had at at 50 degrees on the first try (which translated to a .020 gap for me), but I misremembered Jim's usual recommendation as 44, which is the low end of the spec. I'll readjust to 50 and see if that mucks around with the timing. Anyway, a few other things were cured: The car used to hesistate when you'd blip the throttle. Thats's completely gone now. My guess is something was sticky with the points. Idle used to loaf and hunt within a 50-100 rpm range. Now it loafs a little back and forth around 50 rpm. Timing wasn't steady- it would me +- 1 degree when the light would fire. Now its steady. This list is awesome, and well worth the my paypalled donation. Thanks all again for all your help. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~