Well, I've about beat this poor horse enough. I went out this afternoon and pulled the new asbestos rope seal back out. Wasn't nearly as bad a job as I'd expected. I'd forgot about the screw in Sneaky Pete extraction tool, that and a pair of forceps and vice grips and a little work and it was out. The packed in rope sections came out in fuzzy wads, about 3/4" worth on each side.
I'll finish this project with the new nos gasket when it gets here later this week, hopefully.
While I was under the truck pulling the just installed gasket, I did remember my thought process while installing it. My flawed logic was if I left the crank abit loose, causing max clearance for installing the gasket, I'd be able to pack in more asbestos rope so that when I did tighten the main cap bolts it'd never leak. If, I rotated the crank all through the torquing process so I didn't lock it up.
What I didn't anticipate was the packed in rope might squirt out the side.
Oh well, as my Dad used to say, "Live and learn, die and forget it all".
