Thanks Mark. Turns out all that work to put the engine and tranny together ahead of time was for naught. The angle of my driveway was in no way going to let me get the assembly down in the hole. Took the tranny back off and still had a heck of a time getting that big dog in, but at 9:00 last night she was sitting on the motor mounts. Would be interested what you think about the TC and now with the tranny out, I can take more pics of it if necessary.
So unfortunately I do not have a spare stock converter that uses the smaller (10 inch) flexplate but the concept is the same. This is the larger diameter flexplate/converter bolt spacing. I have a 9 1/2 inch converter but it has an aftermarket cover so no good for this purpose.
The tabs on the converter are 1/2" tall.
Something is definitely wrong. I can help with taking measurements if that would help.
Mark - After grinding down the crank bushing that was sticking out and cleaning up the receptor, I reinstalled the flexplate without the star washers. I figured that was a good idea and I'm not sure why they were there in the first place. When I fit the TC into the crank, the FP and TC tabs lined up nice and tight without a gap. So I installed the TC in the tranny and confirmed that it was fully seated. When I mated the tranny up to the engine, that's when I noticed the gap between the FP and the TC tabs. I put 2 TC bolts in place finger tight and the TC drew right up nice. So I think the gap problem was solved and everything is fitting together nicely.
