MG Car Repair: mgb 68 rebuild, low oil pressure, rod bearings

Question
Howard, you gave me some advise previously to my questions on low oil pressure.  I have been working on my car and wanted to give an update and ask another question or two.

I did a rebuild on the 1.8l engine in my 68.  I did oil pump replacement, main and rod bearings, new distributor, weber, oil cooler, new oil lines, rebuilt trans (formerly some grinding in 2+3rd), etc., etc.

Took about a year, due to job, travel, etc., but took my time and have done this before years ago on an "A".  

Adjusted valves cold when engine was on stand, figuring that I would be repeating once engine ran a bit.

Put all together and could not get it to start.  Realized that I needed to control my fuel pressure to the Weber a bit, so added a regulator.

Found 10 deg BTDC, set timing and she started right up.

Adjusted mixture on weber and idle and all looked good.

Ran for awhile ( maybe 15 minutes) and stalled.  Found that I was not getting spark to the plugs so checked coil and found no HT to plugs.  Checked wire from distributor to coil, and found what I thought was a possibility of shorting out, so isolated and put some electrical tape on the connection.

Started right up again.  Got in car, backed out of garage and wanted to be sure all was ok before going out on the open road and not wanting to call AAA for a tow home.  So, went back and forth in driveway, making sure that clutch and newly rebuilt transmission functioned ok.  No leaks, nothing burning and then it stalled again and won't start.

Have a charger on it and will get back on it once my wife gives me the kitchen pass to go downstairs again.

The first time this happened, I thought perhaps it was a function of temperature and maybe the head gasket.  I checked compression on all cylinders and they are all 135-145 psi.

Any ideas Howard?  I am so frustratingly close.

Thanks,
Brian

Answer
Hi Brian,
If you have good compression you have one of the only three items necessary for an engine to run so look at the other two. Fire and fuel which are easy to check. Pull a spark plug and lay it on a metal part of the engine and spin the starter to see if you have a good blue spark. Then spray starter fluid into the intake to see if it fires off and if it only runs while spraying you have a fuel problem.
Since you already found problems in the ignition wiring you might check that first. Once you narrow it to either fire or fuel it is easy to test further in that section.
Howard