hey everyone, can anyone tell me what a good method is to correctly tune idle mixture screw and the slow idle screw, assuming the tuning on the two is way off?
the car is a 79 210 with an a14 in it.

I would say that the best way to tune a stock A14's carb is with a vacuum guage & a tachometer. Fit the vacuum guage to a fitting on the inlet manifold, not the carb.

Adjust the engine speed to within factory specs, which is about 650 rpm if i remember rightly Next, while watching the vacuum guage, slowly turn the idle mixture screw. You are looking for an increase in revs & a stronger vacuum signal. If the revs pick up significantly, then reduce the idle speed & continue with the adjustment. You need to keep that idle speed down & work on geting that vacuum number up.

If the needle on the vacuum guage flickers too much, get some sort of clamp & gently squeeze the hose to the guage untill the flickering as adequately dampened. A fishtank airline clamp will often do the trick & try to clamp it near the manifold somewhere.

You know that you have it right when the engine idles smoothly at the correct idle speed & any movement of the idle mixture screw results in a reduced vacuum signal.

While you are doing all of this, make sure that the points are right & the timing is correctly set too. A correct idle speed will ensure that the timing can be set properly.

what should the timing be set to on an a series motor?

10 degrees BTDC if memory serves me correctly(this is on an A14 don't know if the A-Series differ)

I don't have a timinglight so I usually just retart the timing until it stops to ping/knock. :-/

i was told by a reputable mechanic that my a12 runs best at about 12 deg advanced, not 22 deg advanced as the last owner had it set on