There is no distributor on your 1973 Volkswagen. It has what's called a Coil and Breaker Plate Ignition. If you have a "Distributor" it's not original. To find TDC cylinder #1, remove cylinder #1 spark plug and stick a long straw or a wooden dowel into the plug hole.
Crank the engine by hand until the dowel reaches the highest point in its travel.
This is TDC.
With the engine at TDC, place the crankshaft pulley at "0" and align all timing marks.
That is TDC for cylinder #1 and the rotor should be pointing to the #1 spark plug wire on the coil.
