alright i have been working on my car and have just finished rebuilding the carb...(kinda scared to try it out... not sure if i did it right...)

 

but for now i have a spare carb on the brat... and i noticed a crazy quirk the car has at idle... it'll just be idling nice and pretty then BAM... it'll drop to zero then go back up again... it'll do that a few times then just die... its like the tach meter is blinking at me or something... kinda freaky...

 

its also backfiring a bunch when downshifting, agressive upshifting, taking foot off gas without clutch in... this didn't happen on my old carb...

 

my dad imediatly said breaker points... its not that i don't trust his judgement but he hasn't worked on a car to any extent beyond wiper blades and light bulbs in about 15 years...

 

so what exactly are breaker points? i know they are in the disty somewhere... does my 79 even HAVE breaker points?

 

if so how do i replace, gap, fix the problem?

 

if not, then what the heck is wrong with my car!?!

Could be your points, if you havn't checked them in a while it would be worth checking anyway.

 

take your disty cap off, take the top rotor off and the points are right there. Held on by two screws. Turn the engine over till the points are fully open and measure the gap between the contacts with a feeler gauge. If wrong, you loosen the screws and use the oval hole in the points with the prong sticking through it to manouvre them around with a largish flat blade screwdriver.

 

also, check the contact surfaces - they should be very smooth (polished), but they probably wont be anymore. If they arn't fairly flat, replace them.

 

It should become apparent what im talking about when you look at them.