Hi,

I just read this whole post so bear with me if this sounds too basic. When you remove the crank pulley bolt, it should come out first, then there should be a heavy, thick washer, then the harmonic balancer comes off. You should see a groove cut in the crankshaft nose that the harmonic balancer came off of. There is a small halfmoon-shaped piece of metal that rests in that groove. It's called the woodruff key. It should be a perfect halfmoon shape with no chunks missing out of it. After that comes out, there should be a thin metal disc that comes off, then the crank sprocket.

When you put it back together, make sure you are using the same order. Also, most importantly, are you putting that woodruff key back in the groove with a thin coat of copper anti-seize before you put the harmonic balancer back on? (also a thin coat of copper anti-seize on the crankshaft nose too) If you don't put it in the groove beforehand, the harmonic balancer will spin on the crankshaft nose and the engine will be out of time.

This is the only thing I didn't see in the troubleshooting tips so I'd thought I'd mention it. Hang in there! I've been in the same boat a couple of times before on the 3.0 V6. I had the exact same thing happen to me changing out the heads for a buddy of mine. After two weeks of messing with the timing and all sorts of troubleshooting tests including hooking it up to my MUT-1 scanner, it turned out that the fuel pump went south at the same time I was swapping the heads. It would run but just not with enough pressure to keep the engine running. It ran just like an engine that was out of time!

Pmontero