Following Clyde's advice, I pulled the distributor and found all the teeth on one side of the drive gear missing. Based on a search of earlier posts on this subject, and the fact that I bought this car and don't know what is in the engine, it seems the corrective actions are:
1. Clean everything that receives
oil to make sure no metal pieces will cause problems in the future.
2. Determine what type of cam I have and replace the drive gear with one of the correct metal (i.e., bronze, iron or steel).
3. Remove the cam and burnish the gear teeth.
4. Check that the
oil pump is not binding.
5. Reassemble everthing.
Did I miss anything important?