Help! 318 Engine dying when shifting to drive

[supergluehero]

Greetings all! This is my first post. I picked up a 72 satellite 3spd a few months ago and I've been driving it around a little bit. I had to crank the idle speed up quite a bit just to be able to drive it. Otherwise it wants to bog down and die at stoplights. Today I started tuning the engine thinking that maybe my air fuel mixtures screws were off. I got the air fuel screws set to max idle speed. When I shift into reverse or drive the car dies. I increased the idle speed up to ~1200rpm and the car will almost run in drive, but the rpms drop to ~650rpm. I thought maybe I had a vacuum leak so I plugged off the PCV line, vacuum advance line and the brake booster line and it acts the same. I checked my vacuum and I was getting ~18.5" at 900rpm. That value went down to about 10" though when I put it in gear. I'm not sure if that's a function of it dying or if there's another vacuum leak source I'm not thinking about. I was going to check the timing, but apparently I have an older 318 with a newer water pump because the timing marks are behind the water pump. Now I can't seem to get it back to where it was and the thing is parked at my brother's place undriveable. Any ideas to try or other things I should troubleshoot? Thanks in advance.

 

[Crackedback]

I'll guess still has a vacuum leak or not enough idle timing.

I'd give the thing more timing, twist distributor CCW a little at a time, then lower the idle speed until you can get it under control in the 700 rpm range.

You might have to hillbilly timing tape the balancer so you can use the timing tab.