On Going no start

Ok , up date, I was able to replace the coil to dist. wire, I unhooked a wire that I thought was powering the electric choke on the carb. but after rechecking was the power for the ignition wire for the run power to coil. So at this point, when I try to start car, wants to run but acts like timing off [ 100 % sure was on number 1 by compression to fined number 1] , tried to move distributor timing , both retard and advanced but acts the same no matter which way I try to adjust. do have spark plug test light on number 1 plug, shows spark however is not a bright white/blue color , only a orange/red color.

Have checked power [12 volt] to coil at crank and run of key, reads 11.8, again I do not have the factory electronic system no resister block, I am using the Pertronix system, [dist. and correct coil] I am not sure why I am not getting a hot spark as what I am told the spark plug tester light should show. Have all new spark plug wires, plugs have less 500 miles on the , NGK GR4GP ,pulled them are clean. This whole problem started end of last year, kept getting harder to start, car was then parked over the winter in my garage, in early Feb. of this year we had a couple of warm days, so I took a look at the car, tried to start, needed to fill tank with gas, took a shot of starter fluid to get it going, drove about 1 mile to gas station , filled tank , was hard to restart but did run, seemed to run good, as I was pulling into the garage , it died coasted in, was not able to restart.

Fast forward to May , when weather was warmer, again try to start, had a cheap aftermarket dist. and matching coil in car.
car started, but seemed like the way it started timing was off, as car was running wanted to check the timing, so as I unhooked the vac. hose to the dist. the car just shut off, and could not get it restarted even with a shot of starter fluid, so I thought since I touched the vac. unit on the dist, that something was wrong with the dist. To which started with replacing the aftermarket dist. and the correct coil for it, as stated above , had to replace the spark plug wires since the Pertronix is a taller unit and could not use the male terminal cap , so I could not reuse the spark plug wires I had , replaced with new spark plug wires, but the coil is not mounted on the engine, but fender well , needed a longer coil to dist, wire. So that is where I am at.

So as this post starts out I am lost as to where to go from here., The funny thing is I have been working on the car for over 13 years, have had it running for about the last 3 years, only in the last year or so , all this started to happen !