I made some significant headway on the truck tonight. I went through the procedure of setting the timing again according to Dragsix's instructions. (Thanks Dragsix for the detailed instructions). I also burnished the points with a thick piece of clean paper. I also took each spark plug out and cleaned them with a wire brush. The black soot just brushed right away and the spark plugs looked brand new again. I rechecked the gap on each one to make sure they were correct. I put the dwell meter back on the truck and the dwell was set right to 39, which I've read is where it should be. The last thing I did was set the idling to 500 and adjusted the fuel/air mixture screw on the carb to where the truck idled the best.
I took it out for a spin and it was better, but it was still missing and coughing quite a bit. I brought it back in and loosened the distributor and turned it just a hair and tightened her back down. Took her back out and she ran much better. I still have a slight miss at high rpm, but the coughing and heavy missing is gone. The popping through the exhaust is also gone. I think if I could find that sweet spot on the distributor with the timing, it would make her sing like a sewing machine. I'm almost afraid to tamper with it anymore, but I probably will try to adjust it just a little more to try and get that miss out at high rpm. Thanks everyone for the help.
