If you like reading stories, read everything. If you want to get to business, skip to the second last paragraph.
Well, had a fairly interesting evening.
Using the diagram you sent my I was doing some wire tracking. One of the wires was supposed to go to ground (wire #2 on the ICM, brown I think), I decided to do a continuity test on it. Not connected. With ignition on, still not connected. Traced the wire and found that it went right next to the negative side on the battery (It was one of those hook things, but it broke off somehow). Well, I put that back on ground, and then put the distributor back on with TDC and 1342 firing, and it started. Left it running for a bit and it idled fairly smoothly. (You know, about as smoothly as a car is going to idle that might be 13,000 past due on oil, has no timing curve, spark plugs, spark plug wires, and who knows what else)
Now, the distributor had been suspected so it had been removed, I opened it and then I couldn't figure out how to put it back together. So, I managed to get it back together without the vacuum advance thingy, and it probably wasn't right anyways. When I put it on, it idled smoothly, and I then adjusted it to the point where it got the most RPM at idle. I know I don't have a timing curve, but it seemed logical that without the vacuum advance that that timing position would be the best. And also when I say a smooth idle, it was missing quite a bit, but the rpm was pretty stable.
Ok so once I got it running good I drove it home. I only killed it twice in a row (I'm fairly new to manuals and I think the engine decided to misfire at the perfect time) but made it home fairly easy. The distance home was a few blocks so not very far. Myself and my dad decided to get some oils for our vehicles (me for mine, him for our family's 08 suburban) at walmart, (belive it or not walmart is a lot better priced than autozone) which is across our small city. Driving down there wasn't too bad, It drove fairly smooth. I insisted on synthetic and got penzoil platinum or something at $26 for 5 quarts, and he got part synthetic high mileage at like $16 for 5 quarts. Kind of ironic that the 08 suburban got the high mileage vs the 84 jetta got the high-performance synthetic, but I couldn't talk him into synthetic.
And the problems started on the way home. Started fine, got to the turn lane to get on the main road home, and it kind of jerked and died when starting to get moving. After trying to start it a few times, it acted a bit like it was out of fuel, as it would kind of start but wouldn't idle (the fuel gauge was broken so we had no idea how much fuel it actually had, its on my to-fix list which happens to be a VERY long list) After pushing the vehicle to a gas station a few block and putting 5 gallons into it, we decided that the problem wasn't fuel. When trying to start it, it sounded like it rotated about 1 turn and then the engine stopped when still trying to crank on the same cylinder. After several tries, we got it to start, but if it got under about 2000 rpm, there was a good chance the engine was going to die and that it would be difficult to get it to start again. You might call it an extremely rough idle. Anyways, my dad drove home, allowing the engine to die numerous times, and when it was trying to accelerate the whole car shook and you could feel when the engine when it decided to fire correctly, as most of the time, it seemed, it wasn't.
OK, so what is likely to have caused this? I know the lack of a timing curve probably didn't help, but why did it make it down there fairly smooth and jerk like crazy on the way back? I'm going to see if I can rebuild the distributor tomorrow, but do you think that is the only problem? What else do you think could cause this?