[chris vickery]

How did the plugs look?
I would maybe take the dist cap off and have a look and see whats up inside.
I think the carb would probably give you some trouble being all dried out but who knows... At the very least, if I were to try running it, I would definately disconnect the fuel line at the fuel pump and plumb in a gas can to start it, that way no old or bad fuel going through the carb. You never know, it may start right up.
I bought a M37 a few years back that had been sitting for many years since being surped in the early 1980s. The owner couldn't get it to run at all and I bought it for a song. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out what was wrong with it. I pulled the cap and it and the rotor were baffed beyond belief.
A new cap and rotor, a fresh gas can and a charged pair of batteries and she fired right up. Granted, it ran like crap because of all the old crap in the carb, cylinders etc but that was fixed in about 15 minutes running on high idle with the throttle lock pulled on and a quart of transmission fluid applied generously down the intake. She smoked like hell but once that tranny fluid did its job, the longer it ran the better it ran. I never did pull the heads or anything, I did a basic tuneup with plugs, wires cap and rotor and for good measure rebuilt the carb. It only got beter after that.