Classic/Antique Car Repair: 1968 cougar, 1968 mercury cougar, mercury cougar

Question
My 1968 mercury cougar (302 4bl)  is running rough and stalling out. On the highway it will back fire. It was tune up professionaly mid summer and I put 300 miles since and it ran well until last week when I took it out for a weekend ride. The vaccuum system was disconnected from the engine to elimiate that problem. Where do I start to trouble shoot points, timming??? What are the point gaps timming marks??

Answer
To get the specs for your engine go to web site http://www.woodyg.com/fairlane/finfo/tuneup/tuneup2.jpg The first thing that I would check is to make sure that the tech that tuned your engine put a small amount of lubricant on the distributor cam. Without lube the rubbing block on the points will wear and close the points up and could be your problem. If the tech has not worked on point equiped cars for a while he could have forgotten the lube.