4R44E Damaged?

[chevimp327]

We bought a 96 Ranger with a bad engine. Had it rebuilt (3.0) and am now in the process of reinstalling it. Thinking that installing the torque converter was easy ( only done powerglides before) I failed to read the book beforehand. Apparently the TC was not seated all the way and the engine would not bolt up completely (approx. 1/8 " airgap between engine and bellhousing) Then we read the book and found out it was quite a deal to get the TC seated and from some other forums found that a lot of other people had the same problem getting it seated. The book says that the front pump or TC can be damaged from not doing it right. So we took the engine and tranny out. We tried sitting the tranny in a vertical position (as one post suggested) and attempted to seat the TC. It worked and is now about an inch farther in (back of TC is rubbing on bellhousing now). So we can say it is now seated, but how do we know if it is damaged? Do we need to take off front pump/bellhousing and look for some specific gear or bearing damage? And how can you tell if the TC is good? Or do we just connect it back up to engine and give it the "works or don't work" test? Thanks for anyone's attention.