Ok, after spending another day under the hood I think I need to toss in the towel and seek professional (or at least, more educated!) help. I've owned my 65 American for two months and have only been able to drive it up the driveway ONCE. Since then.. nada, zip, zilch.
I won't go thru again what Ive done and tried because I think ive tried about everything. Id drive it to my local mechanic.. but its not drivable!. So im putting a call out to the list. If anyone in the Northern NJ area is willing to take a peek and her and at least have a second opinon on what could be causing the problems. I >know< someone will most likely be able to fix it in probably less that an hour. Ive reached the point that everything i "fix" makes me wonder if my "fixing" is just causing more problems.