Still hornswaggled

[Raldel@domain.elided]

     Thanks to all who have helped me think this out. I thought I had solved 
my problem last night. To recap, my 73 spider turns over but refuses to fire 
off. After going through almost everything in the book, I found that the wire 
that goes from the negative pole on the coil, to the distributor, was frayed 
where it goes through the distributor floor and was shorting at times. Since 
I have just about eliminated everything else, I was excited about that and 
fixed it, but to no avail. I did get the car to backfire a time or two 
though, my ears are still ringing, and that was the absolute first sign of 
life. I need help. To recap, here are the essentials:
- Car ran fine as I parked it last weekend.
- Went to start it the next day and it would turn over, but not fire at all.
- Replaced points, condenser, rotor............. nothing
- checked fuel pump and found it pumping to carbs just fine
- checked fuel level in both carbs.......... fine
- Took off cam cover to find timing dead on and everything looking fine. Made 
sure #1 cylinder was in TDC compression stroke.
- checked ignition timing once again......... perfect.
- checked firing order
- replaced coil
- tried another new condenser
- pulled cam cover again to make double sure all timings were correct
- double checked the points gap
- found frayed wire from negative pole on coil to distr. and fixed
- checked plugs to see if firing. They produce a blue spark, although it 
seems a bit erratic, possibly. squirted fuel into plug holes and 
tried........ nothing 
- went back and double or triple checked every single thing
- cleaned all electrical connections and rechecked fuses
- put old coil back on
- battery is in good charge
- compression feels fine to me, and besides, it ran powerfully last time it 
cranked.
         What I have not done:
- Check ignition switch for problems
- Replace external resistor on coil
- Replace high tension wire from coil to distributor
       What am I overlooking? Any help is appreciated as I remain 
hornswaggled.
             randy
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