InternetRoadkill

Let me share a bad experience so you don't do what I did. If for whatever reason you decide to do a restoration on your engine and tranny and decide to paint everything nice and shiny, do yourself a favor and *DON'T PAINT THE FLEXPLATE!* Trust me on this. The same is probably true for a manual flywheel.

The paint is what was causing the noise in my tranny. What happens is if you paint the flexplate and the spacer then torque the assembly to the crank like your supposed to, over time the paint wears off little by little. With the paint gone, a tiny gap opens up between the parts causing everything to get loose. Things go bad in a hurry after that. The same problem happens with the bolts on the torque converter as well. So leave everything clean bare metal, or if you do decide to paint, mask off the mating surfaces and leave them bare unless you want to take the tranny off after about 750 miles.