I got my new HAM heads in and got them on yesterday. Went over the shop to get the rocker arm assemblies on today. Got cylinder one assembly on. Started rotating the crankshaft and heard a crunch and felt a binding at the same time. It was all over in an instant. I did not have the distributor drive in the hole all the way down. Distributor drive(steel) chewed up the brass crankshaft gear. All I could do is call it a day. I will start the teardown in the morning.

Rough one. Sorry to hear.

You did the right thing by calling it a day.

When building a T1 or T4 I always stick an old dizzy in to hold the gear in place.
Also helps when indexing the drive.

Stays there the whole build, when you turn the engine upside down the drive falls halfway out.... as you just figured out.

Sorry to hear this, yet at the same time it might have saved someone else some problems...I am a day or two away from installing my camshaft and then bolting on the other half of the case. (had to order new cam bearings, honestly don't remember if i ordered new ones or lost them in my messy garage if I did buy 'em)

That sucks... But I bet the redo will go a lot faster than it did last time.

I just leave all that distributor drive stuff out until last. I don't see the benefit to putting it in early.

We’ve all been there. Good luck with the tear down. Find all the little bits before you button her back up.

Damn Mark, that sucks. As Mueller said it probably did save me. I haven't put my distributor back in yet and didn't even know this could happen. I have been turning my crank back and forth with the drive gear in it still and could have easily did what you just did.