Need some advice asap
 

I am exchanging my new ring gear for the old one. I have the flywheel off, and I'm getting ready to pop the gear off. Question: is there some trick to holding the crank in place when I reinstall the flywheel and pressure plate? Getting the bolts free was easy enough; I just pounded on the end of a breaker bar with the palm of my hand. But, how do I hold the crank steady while I torque the bolts on reassembly. I am working alone under the truck. It's not lifted up at all. So any advice might consider this. Thanks in advance.

Is the bell housing off? If so a pry bar stuck in the teeth of the flywheel braced against the dowel pin that locates the bell housing works.

I made a tool out of a 4"-long piece of 1"x1"x1/8" angle iron. Pictures here:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/6...l#post16332537

The bell housing is on. The engine is mounted on the frame. Cab is on. I'm working underneath it. Thank goodness there is plenty of room under the truck to do this kind of work. I can't even change the oil on my Honda without jacking it up just to put a pan under it to catch the spent oil. Anyway, I'm thinking that might be able to put a wrench end over the front pulley/harmonic balancer bolt at the other end of the crankshaft. Because of the distance to the crankshaft center and each of the six flywheel bolts, I don't think that I would be increasing the torque on the pulley bolt. There is no easy place to rig up a mechanical stop per Albuq F-1's setup. For what it's worth, I can't get a completely accurate measurement right now of the diameter of the new reproduction ring gear I installed compared to the old original one. But, visually, the reproduction appears to be about 1/8" larger in diameter than the old one.

I'd use the starter hole. Since your alone that's going to be tough. Maybe fix a pry bar using the starter mounting bolts and a strap. As far as the ring gear. there's a thread about starter problems after a new ring gear install.

I have an OT car where the factory method of locking the crank is to use a piece of steel that bolts onto the BH at the starter hole, and has a section of "gear" welded to it that engages the ring gear. You could make similar by welding that 1x1 angle iron perpendicular to the piece that bolts onto the starter hole, and engages the teeth on the ring gear.

Not a fan of using the front crank bolt, if you twist that sucker off you're really screwed.

Using the starter hole sounds good. I've made three attempts to remove the ring gear. When I took the old one off, it went fine. When I put the new one on, I heated it up in the gas bbq and it dropped right in, snug as can be. But now I'm having a real difficult time applying enough heat to get this ring gear from hell to drop. While its cooling down for my fourth attempt, I'm gonna look around for something to support the flywheel that will act a bit like a heat sink. And I'll fashion a stop that fits in the starter hole. I was hoping that his would only be a four hour task. Now, it looks like it's going take all day.:'(