crank now turns freely
 

thanks for all your help to those who replied. i would have posted sooner, but i just go my internet back (modem). it did turn out to be the torque converter was not seated properly. It bent my new flywheel and nearly ruined my high-stall converter. I pulled the engine and re-aligned everything with the new flywheel and its looking good. hopefully i'll have it going by the end of the week. thanks again, shawn.

I knew that had to be it. Glad you got it fixed. Anybody else had to do this by yourself at home (removing/installing the tranny)? Boy what a pain.

Rev

Glad to hear that the problem is fixed, just sorry that parts were damaged in the process. I assumed something was going to give way once it became evident that the problem was the converter not being seated. Lucky for you the converter and tranny seem to be ok.