I had my flywheel and crank pulley off the other day and I noticed that there was quite a bit of longitudinal play in the crank shaft. I read up on this and i started to suspect a spun main bearing. however once I got the pulley and flywheel back on and torqued properly the play went away completely. Any thoughts on this? Ive never heard and noises when the engine runs, although i really dont know what a spun bearing sounds like.

If you had the flywheel off, you'd have tons of play. With the 3 correct shims in there, it should be in spec.

ok thats what I thought. Im not sure about specs but The play is minimal now...

should be around .050" without the flywheel (+/- about .010 or so), and with the flywheel and proper shims around .003-.007 (rebuild specs).

How do you check it?

I use a dial indicator with a magnetic base, but there is also a relatively inexpensive tool that's made to use with feeler gauges.

Before shims:


with shims:

spun bearings usually lock an engine up


I was wondering the same thing about endplay, what if its out of spec? do you use shims to adjust? mine has 3 shims

What about no endplay? How bad is that? Do I remove a shim?

No end play is bad too, you will overheat the bearing and it will seize up. You have to use 3, and the gap needs to be .003-.007. No way around it.

yeah I have 3 shims in there. and there's just a hint of play. gonna get it checked before I go back in with the motor.