'65 327-365hp--what broke?

[Dennis R.]

The motor in my '65 is the original motor with 66,000 miles on it, removed and freshened up at 52,000 in 2003.
Had the car out for a couple hours this morning--running great. About 2 miles from home, I decided to open it up a little. Took second gear to 5,000 and nailed third. Let off the accelerator, and the motor just died. The motor was stumbling badly and some blue smoke was trailing out of the drivers side exhaust. I pulled over and the motor died. There was a very strong odor of gas.
I sat for a couple of minutes, and tried to start the car. The motor started, but I had to keep the RPM's at around 2,500 to baby the car home. As I let off the accelerator in the driveway, the motor died.
I am definetely NOT a motor guy. I took the valve covers off to try and see if a valve spring had broken. Pushed and pulled and twisted everything I could find under the valve covers, put nothing seemed out of whack.
What suggestions would anyone have that may help me out.
Thanks in advance.

[Timothy B.]

Re: '65 327-365hp--what broke?

Dennis,

Pull the dipstick and make sure it's not gas in the oil and overfilled. Run the car with the air cleaner off and make sure the choke is open..

Look for all simple things first.. sounds like flooding, blown power valve in carburetor.

[Stuart F.]

Re: '65 327-365hp--what broke?

Not a common item for the 65 distributor, but because of the way the car died, check for a broken rotor.

Stu Fox

[Joe C.]

Re: '65 327-365hp--what broke?

Pull all of the plugs and check for fouling.
Do you have TI, or not?
If not, then do you have high spring tension points installed?
Check the points dwell.
When you say "nailed" third, that means what? Shifted at 6500, 7000, 7500?
If you floated a couple valves or the points bounced you very likely fouled a few plugs in the process. Pull them all and clean them.

[Randy G.]

Re: '65 327-365hp--what broke?

Don't do an internet message board diagnosis. Get someone who knows what they are doing to look at it. And whatever you do don't start it up again. Blue smoke out of the driver's side exhaust could be something major, like a broken piston or blown head gasket. Blue smoke means oil is getting in one of the combustion chambers on that side of your engine. A compression test or leakdown test should be done. There are several things that can be checked without doing possible further damage to your engine, ie looking for spark plug damage, etc.

If you are lucky it might be something minor, but at this point you need to be careful until the problem is found.

RG

[Steve M.]

Re: '65 327-365hp--what broke?

If You Might Check The Float Level In The Carb Posible Piece Of Debris Got Under Needle Causing In To Run Very Rich

[Tim S.]

Re: '65 327-365hp--what broke?

Was it vibrating? Did it backfire in first or second? Shooting from the hip, I agreee with the power valve or perhaps some debris in the needle and seat.


Tim