One way to check the vac advance would be with a hand held vacuum pump like a mighty vac. If the vacuum canister IS bad, you wont be able to hold vacuum on the gauge of the pump. Another good thing about this is you can see where the vac advance (kicks in) on the gauge if the vacuum canister IS goood.(visually with the cap off) Like if the vac advance kicks in at 22 inches and the engine only has 16 inches of vacuum at idle, then hooking the dist to a engine vacuum source will do nothing while the engine is idling. all depends. the issues you have with not finding the dist vac port may be due to the mismatch situation with the top/main casting. I would think that some investigation will be necessary.