in this pic should i have the lower line going to the carb?



and in this pic i took a vac cap off one the lower ports and some gas came out. normal?

 

No, there shouldn't be any gas in there, unless it was a drop or two left that had been pulled from the engine when vacuum and a bad carb got together.
No reason to run the lower line to anywhere, unless the upper is also run to something. That's a temp switch to open when the water temp gets high enough to allow it to open and provide vacuum to equipment.

 

I'll keep at it, going to try the timing next, if it still won't run on its own. I may invest in a new carb

 

That is the area that the secondaries drain into if leaking. The secondary fuel wells are between the main body and the throttle plate. The secondary wells might need to have epoxy to stop them from leaking. Take the Carb off and lift it straight up, tip it back and see if fuel leaks out between the throttle plate and main body. The secondary needles are on the sides of the air cleaner stud. The upper secondary plates have the hangers for the needles. The wells are the lowest part of the main body and have a area milled out of the throttle plate in the vacuum port runners. The flat head screws in the throttle plate will let you get to the secondary wells without taking the top of the Carb off if you can get the choke and accelerator linkages off. Rochester put a sponge like gasket under the wells that would rot over time, and some rebuilders don't know or don't care about sealing the fuel well a healthy allocation of JB weld or other epoxy to the bottom of the wells will seal them from dumping fuel into your intake washing your cylinders down and putting raw fuel into your oil. HP books has a great book on rebuilding your Rochester that has all the best info on these great carbs

 

i don't want to keep running into carb problems with the rebuild. i'm going to cave in the buy myself a gift with the tax return. think i'm going with the carb bb recommended

Summit Racing SUM-M08600VS - Summit Racing Street & Strip® Carburetors - Overview - SummitRacing.com