Hi We have a 71 beetle and the damn thing is missing
it appears to idle ok
I did all the normal things like clean the points ,cap and plugs
Checked the wiring
anything else I missed?.
I spose its obvious but I don't know what else to check
Graeme

Start the car in the dark,lift engine lid & look for any arching from plug leads or dissy. Cheers

Thought you meant it had fallen out!
Check the rotor button is on firmly, and has its little spring inside so it doesn't flop around when spinning. It must have no cracks at all, and if has a resistor shoukd be about 5 kohm (5000 ohm), can check with an ordinary multimeter. The Carbon contact must be inside the top of dist. cap. Cracks/tracks inside or outside the cap can be very hard to see, esp. on black caps. One minor looking track can cause mis-fire.
Is the condenser OK? Can check by opening points with ign. on - should be only a tiny spark jump the points (you can hear it 'click' if can't see it).
If all that looks OK, try changing the coil (- terminal to points; + terminal to ign.) ANY coil can fail, or become 'intermittent' in behaviour, the red GT40 type seem prone to that.

Check the dwell angle/point gap as the points may have closed up.

Does it only miss underload like when taking off?

Do you have 009 dissy (mechanical advance) and 34 pict 3 by any chance?