question on balancers and crank pulleys for vortec accessory swap
 

I have a stock 1974 350 (014 casting) that I am trying to convert to the vortec accessories and cylinder heads.

I'm stuck on the crank pulley for some odd reason. There is a raised portion on the crank pulley that will not fit into my balancer.

can I just grind this flat or will that affect the overall balance when running at high rpm?

do I need a different balancer or something? the setup I pulled is off a 98 1500 truck.

basically the ridge on the pulley wont fit on the inside of the balancer...

also, people use the 90-95 water pumps vs the 96+ ones as they are the same rotation but do not have the additional water outlets on them, correct?

edit: went and looked at my old v-belt crank pulley and it also has the ridge ring on it. I mic'd them both and they are both 1.23" diameter on the outside. the old one slips on easy, the new one I cant get to go on. I'm afraid of forcing it on and never getting it back off...thoughts?

edit 2: I just drank a little liquid courage and hit it with my impact in rotation and it went on. undid the bolts and then shimmied it off. I guess there was just a bunch of gunk on the parts. I mean I'm just mocking it all up at this point before I take it apart to clean/paint everything so that makes sense. just got paranoid is all.