The luff rope runs down the luff to the tack and then turns 90 degrees to become the foot rope. Assuming you have the original sails, there are two small aluminum tack plates rivetted together at the tack. If the tack plates are missing and the downhaul assembly is directly tensioning the sail material or luff/foot rope, it is very bad for the sail.

Also, tension the downhaul prior to tensioning the outhaul. If the outhaul is tensioned first, all the metal bits in the downhaul assembly can "bunch up" making it difficult to feed into the mast track and downhaul properly.