Marty dropped by this afternoon and repaired the the flexplate ,that I run without a torque converter, by building up the mangled teeth and then truing them with a floppy grinder disk.
Andy took the lead on getting the tanks back in, and finishing the 7.5 " GM rear axle is now locked down, has not quite 2 qts. of Mobil 1 0w-50w and is now ready to be bled.