Back again with more wasted time and money.
Took the car on my vacation. 3.5hrs one way. Not a fun experience at all (driving wise).
Got it home. Checked over the whole front end. I don't know why, maybe I felt like looking at dirty slimy undercarriage parts. Anyways, I didn't find anything. I decided for shots and giggles to turn up my torsion bars a bit, as a friend of mine said that while following me on the road that the car appeared to lean a bit. Took the car for a short drive after that. No change.
Shook both front wheels. To my surprise, they wiggled. The drums wiggled. The wheels bearings were loose. Removed and inspected the bearings, repacked them and reinstalled them. Retorqued them too. Wiggled the wheels again, no more jiggly wheels! Took it for a drive...
Now, it's a bit better. Fixed? No. Better? Sure why not.
It still vibrates at 70. Actually, it vibrates at pretty much every speed above 55. It smoothes out after awhile, but there's still a shudder felt in the car at pretty much all times.
Brought it home. Ran the car through the RPM ranges in park. Hmm. There's a shudder at ALL rpms now. Pulled the motor mounts. Found the PS one to be loose, and both to be pretty aged. For $20, I replaced them. Took it for a drive, and they didn't improve anything. It still shudders at all RPMs. Vibration on the road is still the same.
Unsure as to what's causing the motoro shudder. It used to only do it at high idle (1300-1500rpms). Now it does it all the time. I can run the throttle up by hand and keep a hand on my air cleaner and feel it vibrate all around. My guess is it's gotta be either an internal motor issue or the exhaust is too restricted (though it's stock with a glass pack on it...).
Kinda looks to me like a compression and leak down test is in order to check this things health. I've looked high and low for vacuum leaks, and have not found any. The carb is a reman Carter BBD that I checked over myself for accuracy since we all know how good reman carbs can be.
This thing is such a dog though that finding out it's got a dead lung or a misfire won't surprise me. Stomp your foot to the floor from a standstill and it does...nothing. Really it just grunts. It struggles to spin it's tires on gravel. The only time it feels even remotely peppy is when it downshifts, and even then it's pretty fleeting and it dogs again once it gets back into third gear.