Thanks to all for the tips/tricks. Managed to improvise with a two-armed gear puller I found in the basement to get the gear on the end of the crankshaft off. The hardest part of the whole proceedure ended up being getting the old timing cover gasket off of the block- I don't know what the heck kind of dressing was used on that thing previously! I think I used about 15 blades in a widget to get it all off. The steel gearset is considerably louder to my ears than the fibre was, but the knock at idle is gone and the idle is much smoother now- it will actually idle at about 600 without being too uneven, though I put it at 800. I was left with the felt ring at the end- I'm hopefully assuming that the orange gasket that fits into the timing cover does what the felt ring did on older engines.... at least there wasn't a felt ring to be found already under the cover anywhere when I took it off. The 'turbine' sort of whine the gears made when I first fired up after finishing was a little bit unsettling, but after driving around some it's quieted a little bit- probably needed to get the oil flowing. I really hope I don't end up with the sort of headache Joe had; at least the woodruff keys looked OK, and everything went back together the way it seemed like it should. I guess I'll find out tomorrow when I make the drive back into NYC.
Tom