I am in the process of putting my new engine in my '57 T-bird and discovered a major mistake on my part. I married the engine to the tranny (Ford-O-Matic) on the floor in the garage and then installed both of them as a unit. I am about 60% through the re-connection of everything and went underneath to do the flex plate to converter bolts and found the flex plate needs to be initially clocked a certain way or there are bolts/nuts that stop the flex plate from rotating into the correct position. Clearly I should have done this before installing the unit.

That being said, can I loosen the bell housing bolts enough to get clearance to rotate the flex plate or do I need to completely demate the 2 to get enough clearance to clear the other Torque converter bolts. The second question is, could I have bent the flex plate so I really need to pull the engine anyway to inspect the flex plate?

TIA for any help.