Well, do I have a story. I took out all the plugs. They looked very good. I then took off distributor cap, turned engine by hand, rotor moved. Took off valve cover, turned engine, valves moved, proper sequence, went thru several cycles, head scratching starting.....then I touched the rotor. Now a key piece of data is I had been driving in a field earlier that day, and a relatively non gearhead friend had suggested that might be the problem. She was right. The rotor spun freely. I took it off, and noted scratch marks on the locating nub inside the rotor where it locks with the shaft. I got out my old old distributor cap, (never throw old parts away) and noted that the central electrical contact extended almost a quarter of an inch farther into the cap than on the new one...and the rotor had been contacting the cap contacts at their lowermost edges...the rotor had popped up enough to stop turning with the distributor shaft, was arcing on one contact, and when ever gas went into that cylinder, BOOM, regardless of valve position. No timing. None. I cleaned up the rotor, put it back, locked it into the distributor shaft, put the old old cap back on, fired her up and she roared to life. Warmed up, purred like a kitten. Idling better actually with that new float.
I got a new cap and rotor from NAPA, and noted that the new rotor has the locating nub, but also instead of a round hole, the shaft casting has a triangular shape, so the rotor is locked by the nub and slot as well as the shaft....this has happened before. The center contact spring is also stiffer. The new cap has the center contact similarly recessed the way my malfunctioning one was, but i felt the stiffer spring and triangular hole would make up for it. For now i am running the old rotor and old old cap. And I am a happy camper. Everyone sensing a complete lack of timing was correct. This experience was a lesson in carefully proceeding to investigate problems in an unhurried and observant way.
Thanks for the responses, they gave me structure to check things out in a way that found an unbelievably simple problem that likely started bouncing in the field that morning.
Dave
