Ok, here's what I saw and what happened. We resolderd the trigger point wires. They had been hanging by a thread and finally just broke apart when we pulled out the distributor and trigger point plug. I am 90% sure we resoldered them back correctly where they were originally, but the wires were sort of cris-crossed. i guess this could make a diff, BUT we had the problems BEFORE the soldered contacts broke.

The previous owner replaced cap, rotor, coil, spark plugs, wires, and ignition module (rebuilt). he just ran out of patience/money with this car.

The plugs are new, but have already blackened because of rich running.

I am concerned that perhaps the dist. shaft is bad (opening/closing only 50% of trigger points) and by spending the $300 to replace trig points I wont be any better off!

Should I think about buying a used dist? complete with trigger points?

Thanks

Bud