Newbie and need some ignition system guidance

[Rollercam]

I am the fairly new owner of 1978 Scout II with a 345 and honestly, I don't know what I am doing when it comes to wiring and the ignition system. I took the Scout to be tuned up and have some rewiring done. To make a long story short, the guy doing it it ripped all of the wiring out and then gave up and told me to come pick it up. So now, I have a Scout that was running at one time, but it now has all some of the ignition and all of the under hood electrical system and wiring removed.

I have tried to read the sticky's, but I am not an electrically inclined person at all and I get overwhelmed and lost quickly when reading about distributors, coils, resistors, etc. I just don't understand all of that stuff. I am not even sure of what brand or type of distributor is in the Scout right now. However, I am willing to start fresh. I guess my main question is: can someone tell me what I need to buy or replace to have a functional and reliable ignition system? Right now the engine has no wiring run, but the distributor, the coil, and what I believe is the resistor is still mounted to the engine. I am willing to have things rebuilt and/or replace things to get the best bang for my buck. I am not restoring this truck back to factory specs so I am willing to mix and match parts to get the best setup. I just need someone to tell me to buy distributor a, part b, and part c and then hook them up like this. I hope I am not over simplifying things too much.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. This stuff seems to get complicated fast and there appears to be all kind of home shop conversions out there, but I don't know what really works and what doesn't.

 

[Scoutboy74]

Wow! What a friggin' tool. Not you. The d-bag who gutted your wiring. Did he have any mechanic credentials, or was he just some greezy-fingered dude with a disheveled mullet and a puss-gut who said he'd work for beer?
At any rate, lets start by having you take some good pictures of things under your hood and post them here for us to study. Get the air cleaner canister out of the way. We want to see what you have for a carb. Pop your distributor cap loose...don't remove the plug wires...just get the cap loose so we can see inside the distributor. Basically a mixture of medium shots from both sides of the bay to give a broad scope and then some close ups of distributor, carb, coil etc.
Reason I ask for this is, we know what components came as original in 1978, but a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Parts get swapped out. Things get retrofitted. Making assumptions about what is installed on a sight unseen vehicle is a fools' errand. Since we can't be there to view it ourselves, you as the "boots on the ground" will be responsible for providing images. This is especially helpful for someone in your position who is new to the game, but learning. Not sure what something is? Take a picture. Someone here will know.