Sunday night update:
I tried a few things earlier that did not work. I went ahead and decided to check things out one more time before tearing the timing cover off –
Put the engine on compression number one – top dead center. I put a screwdriver through the spark plug hole so I could fill the piston. To my surprise, the piston was still moving as I bumped the motor-even though the engine was supposedly at top dead center.
I pulled all of the spark plugs again, and then spun the motor back-and-forth around top dead center, and put a pencil line on the harmonic balancer where I thought top dead center should be.
Spun the engine clockwise, and made a mark when it felt like the piston stopped – did the same thing going counterclockwise.
All of my pencil marks were happening at about 2 o’clock right under the timing marker on the cover…
But the factory mark on the harmonic balancer was way over at about 10:45!
I started looking at the balancer more closely, in the upper ring in the lower hub are not in line with each other anymore – it looks like the upper ring has moved towards the engine about an eighth of an inch. I crawled under the truck and grabbed the balancer from the backside and could fill the same offset on the inner surface.
The first picture is top down, the dark area is the upper balancing ring, and the arrow is pointing at the offset on the inner hub
