I talked to Lakewood today on the phone, they said the proper way to install it is to use a dial indicator set-up, w/magnetic base on the crank, indicator needle against the lip of the big hole where the tranny sticks through the bellhousing. You turn the motor and keep adjusting the bellhousing till you get a runout of as close to 0.001" as possible. It's then centered right over the pilot bushing. You then slip tight (interference fit) washers over the dowel pins and weld them to the bellhousing, so that you can take it on and off without losing alignment. Lakewood also makes offset dowel pins that you can rotate around to move the bellhousing center. I fear that they would move though.

My question is this: how critical is it to get this heavy beastly bellhousing aligned to perfection? The bellhousing obviously locates the tranny input shaft into the crank. Mine is pretty darn far off right now, and I think the dial indicator would be a wise move, what do you all think?

Another issue I have is that this motor is freshly rebuilt, never started. If I go rotating this motor around by hand should I squirt some lube into the spark plug holes to keep from damaging my new rings and bores? It's really hard to turn the motor over right now, even with a two foot breaker bar. Also, when you're looking at the front of the engine (i.e. looking at the waterpump) does the crank spin clockwise or counterclockwise when running?

Sorry for the long post, thanks much for any help. Hope I explained that without it being too confusing.