History: I've had the car about 5 months, about 1-2 weeks ago I started experiencing some hard starting, finally wouldn't start at all. Checked under the hood and the carburetor was loose enough to almost just lift off of the motor. I tightened it down, but still have the same problem.
A friend of mine thought it might have been a timing issue and said I should look at the distributor. The pickup looked really rough (instead of the .008" gap, the metal piece that was supposed to be protruding from the coil was sunken in) so I replaced that, as well as the rotor button, which looked like it had a small indentation. Also, I noticed that the hose to the vacuum controller on the distributor was disconnected and plugged with a screw. I reconnected that and tried to start - same problem.
Same friend said from my description of the old pickup that the bushings in the distributor might have worn out causing the reluctor to wobble and hit the pickup.
I'm pretty comfortable replacing parts and everything but I tend to shy away from stuff that might screw up my timing (like removing the distributor) Is there anything else I could do to get a better idea of what's going on before I haul this to a shop and throw myself on their mercy?