internal damage?

[xluciusx]

I messed around with it a little tonight. Pulled the valve cover, everything looked fine there (as expected). Turned the engine over by hand, it gets real hard to turn when the timing mark is at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock positions but then moves smoothly once I get it past that point, and it didn't seem to make any noise or feel rough between. I didn't get the pan off, holy crap that is a lot of work. Am I going to have to drop my transfer case and down pipe? They both go under the pan and I don't see how you can get it off w/o getting them out of the way too.