Carb Adjustment continued and Fuel Mileage ):

Most assuredly....

It all goes hand in hand.......

From your other description, your engine is running SUPER rich.  You should be in the 25-30+mpg range.

Could be a stuck pilot valve on the float(s), mixture screws way out, incorrect jetting on idle or main circuits (or both), incorrect valve adjustment, timing off, etc.  If you get all that stuff on the money, your gas mileage should be around 28-30 mpg.  And it'll probably have a bunch more power.

Might as well approach it as Al suggested:  Check the valves (cold), set the timing (30° BTDC at 3000 rpm if a centrifugal distributor, 6-8° BTDC at idle if it's vacuum advance) and THEN start looking at the carb issues; change or clean the air filters, check float levels and clean pilot valves, pull the idle and main jets and let us know what they are (they should be stamped with the size) so we can all make recommendations on what you should be running, and then you can get to the accelerator pumps.

Or you can mess with the pumps first, but that'll never improve your mileage OR get the gook off the back of your car.

All this stuff can be done in a couple of evenings or a Saturday afternoon.  If you want to be really cool, you can get some rebuild kits for your carbs, find an instruction set and just rebuild them and be sure of what'cha got.  For Solex's, figure about an hour apiece to rebuild them. 

As always Gordon, you are right on target.  Wish I lived next door to you.

Thanks to everyone for the input, I'll be working on this over the weekend, will let you know what I find.

Thanks, craig