Crankshaft

PS...I'm planning on buying a piston and sleeve kit and was holding off buying one before I knew about the bearing.

If the engine needs rebuilt you are going to spend significant time and a fair amount of money. So pony up the additional couple of hundred bucks needed to have an automotive shop clean and resurface all the wearing hard parts. That means new pistons, sleeves, and bearings, wrist pins and bushings, etc. Reground crank, cam, and valves and seats. Block professionally cleaned and magnafluxed and decked as appropriate. Anything else is a false economy that will likely cost you far more in the long run if you are going to keep the machine for your own use.

As the saying goes - "you can pay me now or pay me later". Later almost always includes interest.

TOH

I would never even consider putting old rod and main bearings back in an engine. Take the crank to a good machine shop that does a lot of them and tell them to clean it up and match the bearings to the journals. If it comes back with bearings taped to the journals make sure you install the bearings in the same journal they were on when you got it back. Some shops turn all the journals to the same size and some don't. If they don't want to get the bearings for you make sure they tell you how much undersize they ground the rods and the mains.

Also we ALWAYS plasti-gauge all rods and mains before we put the engine back togather. Much better to find out you have the wrong bearings before you put the oil pan back on.

Good luck.

Paul K.

When I rebuilt my 8N engine, I had the crank checked and polished and the rods resized (checked for roundness and ware) by a professional machine shop.

I have been told by a good mechanic that if you can run your fingernail over the journal and it catches on a grove or scar of some kind, it needs polishing, at a minimum.

Good luck with it.

HTH Rick