Thanks for all the input guys. After digging into the car a little more, I realized that there is no thermostat, and that the previous owner drove it around with the choke closed most of the time as it's manual and he had no cable. It was his son's car, but he passed away and dad was taking it out every week to keep it running. I'm guessing dad never realized and thought it was automatic. I pulled the carb and gave it a good cleaning. I have a timing light but also wanted to establish TDC as I don't trust the marks he made. Looked like from the balancer he was shooting for between 34 and 36deg total timing but I have no idea what the initial is yet until amazon delivers my TDC bolt tool and marking tape......to be continued.