Ever have one of those weekends...........

Ok, Sat. morning, I took a couple extra hours of work off to get the 1971 Caddy running better to take it to a cruise that evening. ( The Challenger was still polished up for an even bigger cruise coming on Sunday. It was supposed to rain Sat, so I figured I'd only have to clean it once.) The 472 in the Cad has been giving me fits. It only has 32,000 orig. miles on it. It idles rough, then smooths out until about 35mph. It then runs super rough from there on up. I worked up until 30 minutes before the cruise and changed the following on it. ( Plugs, Wires, cap,rotor, points, fuel filter, coil, condenser, a bottle of gumout/seafoam in the gas tank, 2 cans of carb cleaner through the carb.) It still runs the same. At this point I am frustrated with the Caddy and figure, I'll take the Challenger anyhow. I can clean it twice, It is reliable, and is newly rebuilt. ( less than 150 miles on rebuild.) . I go to the cruise, enjoying every minute of my new 440 in it. I behaved very well. No burnouts, no holeshots, just a normal 7 mile cruise to and from my house to the cruise and back. I got back, pulled it in the garage and "THOUGHT" I heard a noise in the motor. I looked around and couldn't find it. I checked all of my fluids, and they were all ok except for my power steering pump. It was a little low, but not anyways near dry. I filled it up and couldn't hear the noise anymore. I figure, Ok, it is fixed and ready to go to the cruise tomorrow.
I get up this morning with the roosters because I still get anxoius to take the car out. I get it and go get some more gas in it to get to the cruise 11 miles away. I "THOUGHT" I heard the motor noise again, when I got to the gas station. I got out and couldn't hear it. I pumped the gas and went 4 miles. Now I know there is a noise in it because the smoke was coming from out the air ducts of the hood. It was louder than the car running itself. I hear a screeching noise along with the knocking sound on the bottom end. My buddy took my wife back to the house to get our Durango. I figured I'll go as a spectator if nothing else. She got back to get me and I decided to go home, get the Caddy and got to the cruise. It made it there.....70mph down hill and 20 mph up hill. It had a miss the whole way over. My 5 year old was worried we were going to break down in the 2nd car of the day. We got there and halfway into a very good cheeseburger, it started to downpour.
No I am looking at a complete tear down on the 440 to see what happened. ( I will probably go stroker this time if I have to buy a bottom end). It only had 150 mile on it, so my heads and things are still fresh. As far as the Caddy goes, a person at the cruise wants to maybe buy it, but I want to get the miss straightened out. ( my guess now for it is either a quadrajet rebuild/replacement, or the distributor itself. All in all, it was a very expensive and disappointing weekend. I still love old cars, but a weekend like this sure make me consider different hobby. ( but I won't let that happen.)