an update
- finally had a weekend at home where the temperature was above freezing for most of the day & I could work on Ursula

A bout a week ago, the intermittent stumble/misfire seemed to get better when I enriched the carbs, but it never really went away. & Then, when I tried to balance the carbs (in the bay of the auto wash after a quick rinse-off of salt) they just would not balance - the front one was always too rich, no matter what i seemed to do. & the mis-fire just wouldn't go away & began to get worse.

Yesterday, I replaced the points (which were quite shot)- and properly set the gap (which I think was WAY off), replaced the condensor, & checked/reset the timing - (which was at almost 30 deg BTDC). Then, when Ursula fired up, she ran MUCH better.

I then turned my attention to the carbs - recognizing that I would never had been able to properly balance them with the iginition system so out of whack. I still was having a difficult time getting them to balance - I would turn each jet-adjust screw all the way up & then back down an equal number of turns, but the front carb was always runnig too rich. When I looked even closer at what was going on, I realized that when I was turning the jet adjust screw on the front carb, the top jet screw was also turning, so I was lowering the entire jet mechanism - which created quite a substantial depression for fuel in the chamber - so it was running VERY rich. Once I made sure that I was just lower the jet on each, I was able to get them in balance pretty quickly.

The drive to work was pleasure today - Ursula was back to her old self - quick & sprightly, powerful & dependable ... & not nearly as stinky.

Bottom-line .. as Ron Kwas adeptly pointed out, never rule out anything - don't rule out an iginition issue until you check & don't assume you are properly adjusting the carbs, with-out visually verfying that the jets are doing what you think they are doing

thanks

tim