At my wit's end

Alright so I've been trying to get my wife's Dart tuned up a bit better than it was when we bought it a few months ago. Just the usual tune up stuff. I finally got it running decent but not 100%. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that when I was taking it for a test drive around the block that it stalled when I came to a stop. Brother-in-law suggested changing the cap which seemed to fix the problem. I had it sitting for the last couple of weeks waiting to get my Ranchero out of the driveway so that I could replace the shocks and motor mounts. The wife was getting on my case about driving her car so I checked the fluids this weekend and took it for a quick drive to make sure it was running right. It seemed to idle a little rough when I put it in gear but it ran. I got to the same stop sign and it stalled again. As I drove it back to the house it just got worse.

When I redid the cap and rotor I didn't replace the points and condensor so I went ahead and got some new ones. Now I will admit that I've never dealt with points but I've read a ton of info on setting the points. From what I read the gap should be .020. I have them set to that, and I've tried small differences but no change. I tried using a spare coil I have in the garage thinking that it wasn't getting enough spark, but no change. Thought the ballast resistor might be the problem so I replaced that too. Still nothing.

The issue is that things just seem to be getting worse on the car. Initially I got it set and it idled ok but still died in gear. Then it just started idling worse and now wont idle at all. I've reversed everything I've done and still nothing. Put it back and still the same. It will run if I give it some gas but as soon as I let off it idles down to a struggle and then dies.

I read that it might be an issue with the carb so I started looking at that. I pulled the air cleaner to look down in the carb and it looks fine and seems to be spraying fuel ok. I did notice that the choke rod had no tension in it either way so I pulled that off to check it out and reset the spring. Of course in taking that off I snapped the bolt that also holds down the accelerator return spring bracket. Regardless I need to drill out the bolt and fix that, but that is kind of besides the point.

I am going to get the components to put in HEI this weekend as well as a carb rebuild kit, but was hoping you guys might be able to shed some light on what this issue might be so that I am not doing all this work to have the same problem.