I think I found a problem... The car idles ok and revs good when there is no weight on the engine. When it is in gear it kinda stutteres and spits in the 2000-4000 rpm range. I just checked the timing and set it at 12*. but I watched it and it bounced from 9-11* I'm guessing thats bad...(gulp) Also, on a 750DP, which of the four idle screws does what? Which is air, which is fuel? Kinda of a lot, but the timing thing worries me.

afaik, the 4 idle screws all adust fuel. there is one for each barrel so the carb can be balanced.

ok thanks. now that I know that, what about the timing?

vacuum leak at the modulator on the tranny would be my guess since you don't have the problem in park. might want to check your total timing at the rpm you are noticing the problem at.

sloppy timing can be from a worn dizzy. Of course, I am relearning this stuff myself...

what the heck is a dizzy

what the heck is a dizzy
distributer

do you have the vacuum canister hooked up?

something is probably worn like the cap, rotor, coil, or wires. Another thing is that you may not be using the timing light wrong. My auto tech shop had an expensive one that when hooked up showed the timing bouncing around and I didn't understand, put a cheap timing light on and the timing wasn't bouncing, we had to program the expensive timing light to make it read correct.

valve problem....vacuum leak

Ok, I pulled to cap off the dist and the piece in the middle looks a bit black with some scortch type marks on the white plastic starting from the inside going out. The tip thing that spins and connects with the different wires is black too. Is this thing worn out or is there something else I should look for?

Not trying to bust your balls here, shouldn't you know what these "things" are if you're tearing through them asking questions. sorry...
Take a brass brush to them and clean them up a bit. Your timing that is jumping +/- 1* isn't that big of a deal. I would worry more about what the total timing is and go from there. There are a ton of threads about setting total timing and moving on from there.

Need to post what your timing is set at now, rather than us guessing and giving you bad tips to try when us we don't know the whole picture yet.

And like all have said above, could be a number of issues possible. But need to get the timing straight before messing with anything else

If your timing is jumping around at idle in neutral/park I'd suspect that you're right on the edge of the centrifugal advance starting to kick in a little. Might try idling it down 100-200 RPMs from normal idle speed and check again to make sure it's still reading the same AND that the reading is stable.

If it's still jumping around then something is probably work out somewhere- timing chain, worn distributor gear or the advance mechanisms in the distributor itself being the usual suspects.

FYI- always check your initial timing with the vacuum advance line disconnected from the distributor and plugged.