got a new gasket greased it up and put it on
then offered up the flywheel side casing and put
on the nuts and bolts and slowly tightened them all up
but once again the crank locked up!
however i did notice as i was tightening the bolts
that the flywheel side casing was pushing the crank into the
main engine housing so i put on the flywheel and the
cranked turned (reluctantly) slowly with no rubbing
so thinking that the crank was now too far over to the one side
i made up a puller with some big washers and bearing inner races
and tightened up the flywheel nut pulling the crank back out about a millimeter to the flywheel side housing undid the puller and BINGO the crank turned freely! success!
it must have been very slightly out of line i guess and pulling it
back through squared it up
i can now get on with building the rest of the engine up as
im getting my frame back from the painters next week
cheers for your help and input