[Barnsnake]

What's different between the test and actual cranking:

1. When cranking you get a voltage drop due to the starter load, so a marginal battery or high-resistance connections are a possibility. You might want to check the voltage at the ignition box while cold cranking.

2. The spark plug in the coil wire bypasses the distributor cap and rotor. Give them a good inspection, especially the rotor-to-cap contact.

3. The paper clip test bypasses the pickup in the distributor. Given that is one of the most frequent points of failure in an MSD system an inpection and (cold) resistance test is probably warranted.