You were exactly right. Took it out, cleaned it up good, and cleaned it some more and the first time I fired it up I could tell the difference. So I took it off again (to familiarize myself with it even more) and cleaned it one more time for good measure and it seemed to run even smoother. There was also a cable running to the bottom of the distributor that was also badly frayed and had been soldered on all three wires, so I checked those and retaped them, made a slight adjustment on the distributor alignment and now you can hardly hear the engine running with the hood shut closed.

Thank you so very much.