The car won today.
6 hours and all I have to show for it it a pic of the crank trigger wheel installed. temporary_zpse2249527.jpg
"https://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/attachments/temporary_zpse2249527-jpg.114911/"
This stupid balancer has been on/off the engine about 6 times. I started out solely intending to mount it behind the balancer, but the dilemma was trying to properly locate the thing so I could. The machinist used the front balancer hub to reference off of, and that was way too big when I flipped the thing around. I did finally manage to locate it, and drill (4)10-24 holes in the outer ring of the balancer.
I painted it, mounted it up, and reinstalled the balancer.
It hit the timing cover.
Back off it came, and I di cked around trying to mount it on the front instead. That proved to be a no-go because of the balancer I bought from Summit. It's flat faced, and comes with a big steel pilot hub that goes in the front to use as a locator for a crank pulley. You beat this thing in the balancer, install the pilot, and then you use a big honkin' snap ring that came w/ the balancer to hold the pilot shaft in.
After that your supposed to be able to install the pulley over the snap ring to jam that assembly together. All of that left no room for that crank trigger wheel up front, so I fell back to the original plan. It looked to me like it was hitting the timing cover at the crank pilot, because it was sticking proud of the rest of the cover. So I cut the hell out of the crank trigger so it would get past that, and tried again.
The screws were now hitting the oil pan lip. Off it came again.
I ground the heads of the screws, and beat on the oil pan lip, and reinstalled it. It cleared.
temporary_zpsfd01cedd.jpg
"https://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/attachments/temporary_zpsfd01cedd-jpg.114912/"
Now as I write this I realized that I have installed the snap ring on the wrong side of that pulley. There is absolutely nothing holding it in the front of the balancer, so I still am not done w/ this damn thing.
I also don't know if that little assed pulley is gonna charge the alternator, I may have to go the route that Scott went @RacEoHolic330, and get one custom made.