Subtle miss,....first thing I should look at?

The car has a very subtle miss while idling. No backfires, or spontaneous splutters. You can just hear that the rhythmic cadance of the engine is "off". Whats the first thing I should investigate? I thought about replacing the spark plugs (which dont look very aged to begn with) but what are some other places to look? It runs strong on the road, and doesnt appear to have any trouble getting fuel routed through.

Thanks.

 

Changing the plugs would be a good start, then work from there, points and condensor, distrubitor cap, all not too expensive and easy to do.

 

look down the throat of. the carb while its running and look for any drips out of the venturies. if its driping you will need to lower the float level a little bit.
also spark plug wires can cause this.

 

Here is a list of 18 things it could be. #19 could be a bad cam lobe. Click pic again after it loads to see it full size

 

Now isn't that a gem?! Printing this out as I type. Thank you!

 

Don't waste your money on new points & condenser, use it towards buying a Pertronix.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/PNX-1261/

 

I second that.

Every straight six I had has that lopey idle or 'miss' when sitting and running. I found that a simple carb rebuild and cleaning would fix this.

An overall tuneup (new vacuum hoses,carb rebuild, motorcraft plugs, new wires, 40 weight oil, and some lucas oil additive) would be good though for the motor.

 

Look at your spark plug wires in the dark.