[nilknarf]

LOL- Thanks Walt! You're right- the tears would be tough to fight off had I gotten as far as the cam timing! (so would the urge to go out and buy a corvette instead!)

Thanks for the reassurance on the flywheel end nuts- I did use a fairly short box-end wrench wrench on those flywheel end nuts- I think I just need to be a little more careful (and of course, use the correct nuts)... you're right- the loads on those perimeter nuts are pretty constant, and at only 18 ft/lbs (with a freshly calibrated wrench) I was surprised that I had a problem. I think as jjrowe suggested above (as did Wayne in his book) I'll have all those perimeter studs heli-coiled just in case, and I'll have time-serts installed on the two longer "interior" studs I pulled. My hope is that I don't kick myself for "cheaping out" and not sourcing another case as Mike suggested in the second post of this thread.

Looking back, I don't feel quite so bad about doing the bottom end again- I think I'll do a few things differently next time- the through-bolt o-rings were blue (so next time I'll go w/viton) and I'll try the Threebond sealers per Henry's reccomendation from another thread. It's all good practice!

_curt