66 Chevy No power to coil? HELP

[66K10383]

Hi,Ive been lurking these sites for some time now. Ive been into 64-66 chevy trucks for as long as i can remember. 2 years ago on valentines coincidentally I picked up this jaw droping(to me) 66 Chevy pickup that was bought new in the area with factory 4x4 and a 383 (rust included),kinda funny to think back when i first popped the hood and saw a v8 i was disapointed since the only other chevys i had been around all were I6s which is what I wanted for the simplicity and reliability.......... until I fired it up!
HOLY ****! WHAT A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE! Whew, I get all excited just thinking about it. It was in the middle of winter and i was outside under the hood cleaning away, aperently under the inch or so of grease were chrome valve covers a cloged up Edelbrock 1406 with a sticky choke, and a Holly street dominator intake. Just a little different then a 250 I 6. everything else was stock original with the exception of a very ****ty paint job i assume was thrown on with the 383 maby 15 years back(just a guess) .let me tell you the sm420 is not a good tranny to go flying through the gears with

The truck became my DD for a few months and I never had a problem with it
except for the sticky choke and half cloged carb denying instant start up(no money for rebuild), sometimes it would fire up instantly with a single bump of the key.
I had a few close calls with the manual steering,bad 33 12.50s and a 13in steering wheel with the power of a 383 behind it.(crazy times for an unexperienced driver).luckly I never put a dent on it.

I got some fresh 235/85s on it and it now drives like a dream compared to unbalanced badly worn 33s. sorry about the life story but i miss my truck

about a month back I drove to a friends place and it ran as usual, i was there maby 10 minutes. she fired right up and as soon as i hit reverse she died.
no start. it sat for afew days awhile I tried to sort it out. some one said try the starter. so i swaped that with another one I had laying around and nothing.

I noticed it would fire while the starter was engaged(engine turning over) but it would cease as soon the starter did, I was told try the ignition switch itself. I pulled one out of a 64 parts truck that happened to use the same key as the original, direct swap. Still the same story.

Finally I got a test light and ran it to the positive side of the coil, key on no light. some old man said I could run a wire from the positive of the batt to the coil for direct power, it works, my engine will run. I then heard the coil should get 12 volts only during cranking, then drop to 9 volts running in effort to prolong the life of the points. Is this TRUE?

What would cause the no power issue to happen out of nowhere? could it be the solenoid on the starter its self?

I just recently thought HEI Distributor! Would that fix my problem? I think it should but I honestly dont quite know enough about them. Dose anybody have an opinion of points distributor VS HEI Distributor?

A couple of pics

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59058330@N03/5979617862/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59058330@N03/5979627316/