I have a 65 with a 289 or 302 (not sure) with a real bad vibration. Idling it vibrates pretty bad but when you drive it the whole car shakes. Is there a way to check if it might be the torque converter without taking the tranny out? Are these motors internally or externally balanced? Thanks alot for your input.

 

well it could be a whole bunch of things the first thing i thought of was misfire broken engine mounts or there was one more thing but i just had a brain fart and now i can remember what it was called it is way to early

 

I found out is a 302 crate motor from a discount auto parts store. Can you unbolt the torque converter and push it back far enough so you can start the motor to see if that cures it? Thanks alot.

 

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Make sure you have the RIGHT harmonic balancer installed, and that it hasn't SLIPPED...

You might want to do a compression check on all the cylinders. This is easy to do and will tell a lot about the condition of the motor without having to take anything apart. After that, check the plugs and plug wires. You may have a fouled plug or two...

Is it smoking?? Could be a blown head gasket...

 

It could be as simple as having the spark leads plugged onto the wrong spark plugs. I've done this accidentally when changing plugs, and the vibration was really bad. (from memory I had 1 and 3 mixed up.)