Thanks for your reply to one of my other posts. I have some vacuum line lying around that I will use to replace the old and then go from there to see if the advance is the culprit. Also, they say it might actually stop raining for a few days so we might get a chance to take it out and get the engine hot and control the crank diagnosis in the manner you suggested soon.
I was looking over your site a little bit and, while I didn't have time to look over all of it, found some of it helpful in jogging my long filed memories on Beetles. In the section about hard starts you covered about everything, except that I do not see any suggestions about looking over the points and how they might be filed and reset. It's been so many years I just don't remember the specifics such as what the point gap is. Seeing your carb chart makes me wonder if this things is actually a 70 motor with a different carb or maybe a completely different motor.
Can you or anyone else point me to a site that has a good rundown of common specs such as gaps and tolerances and belt sizes and motor ID methods and basic stuff of those likes? Something for the casual, back yard wrencher? I have tried googling, but there are a gazillion hits for anything with 'beetle' in it and I just don't have time to sift through it all.
Again... thanks for the replies.