Thanks for your help Autozen. I borrowed a dwell meter for this weekend. My plan is as follows.
Remove dist. cap and rotor.
clean ignition points.
check gap,set to .016 if needed.
pull dist coil wire lay on block to ground it.
hook up dwell meter,green wire + side of coil,blk wire to ground.
have my son turn key to turn engine over.
read dwell,set to 30* if needed
put rotor,cap and coil wire back on.
check timing with light, set to 5* atdc with dist vac. line on,car at 800rpm.
If this does not fix the very rough running of the car (hot or cold) Then.
Remove the dist. and clean the trigger points.
If the trigger points are good, the dwell is good and the timing is good, and plug wires and plugs all good. I guess I can rule out ignition as being a problem. How does this sound.

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Stable:
1973 450sl
1978 red diamond ice vette
1975 steel blue convertable vette
2002 steel blue dakota quad.