No worries, Jerry. We've all been there.
I've been working on my "high tech" starter that died after only 10 years (not so good compared to the original that made it some 50 years) the past few days. Looks like part of the problem is that the motor hangs down right next to the exhaust pipe; so I tried re-clocking to position it the other way. Drilled lots of holes, broke off a drill bit in the adapter plate, thought I had it all worked out ... until I realized that with the motor on top, the top bolt cannot be installed! Of course I didn't find that until I had all the wires connected, bottom bolt installed and so on. So I wasted 3 evenings of fiddling around for nothing.