Just curious here but could you start it just by pushing in the clutch, or did you have to put the trans in neutral?

I had an instance where my 64 nova had been sitting in Seattle for a year, and when I went back and tried to start it the clutch had actually rusted to the flywheel and pressure plate, but after starting it in gear messing around with it a few times it broke free, and worked fine.

I am not sure if the T176 has any external linkages (I am sure someone will know), but if it does I would check to make sure all of them were free and none of them were stuck.

Sean