ok, dug around in my stuff and found the same bracket that Bison has, and got it installed. it appears to only go on one way, the little "tip" hanging down so it can bump into the bellhousing. bolt sticks straight out. I cursed the previous owner and crossed my fingers when I threaded the SAE grade 5 3/8 bolt back into the bellhousing :O I assume they stripped the threads and heli-coiled it, but that would be doing it right, they probably put the SAE bolt in when they lost the original bolt. it seemed to tighten up though...
heatshield went in OK. up front, it needs to go under the starter bracket, this became rather self explanatory when I saw the bracket, no way was it going over a raised lip to go under the bolt head. of course the bracket was attached to the starter, but not to the block. thanks again jerks.

so I bought a new proper bolt from GM, and got it close to tight, torqued the main bolts (a pair of new from GM) to 40 lb/ ft, and then snugged the 3rd bracket up.
So, heatshield is in, bracket is on, everything buttoned up, new used front tires on, so now we are down to the radiator and the rear tires,
and trying to grease some u-joints the PO put in with no regard to how much room is on either side of a yoke. if he would have paid attention, 2 of the 3 would have been flipped 180 degrees. oh well.