1970 280sl:
put the rebuild distrubutor in and turns out the old cap didnt fit. so i got the right one and it would turn and turn without any firing. Put the old distrubutor and the same thing happned. swapped them out a few times throughout the day and I accidentally did something that got the car running. I was checking to see if i was getting spark to the dist cap and it turned over! when i hold the wire 1/2 inch above the cap, the spark jumps into the cap (you can see it) and runs like a charm.
I tried this with both distributors and same thing. My only guess is that its the coil, but WHY?

But can it be? I'm getting sparks, so coil is working?
Thanks for reading