Thanks for the responses. that makes perfect sense about the "twisting" or turning on the pins. I'm used to working on 4-stroke motorcycle engines that have solid cranks and use split con-rods.

JLB, when you "straightened" the cranks did you chuck on the back end of the crank and then tap the counterweights(with chuck locked) to get frontshaft and backshaft to the same ctr? I've never had a twin apart so I'm not quite sure what the crank arrangement is. Sounds like worst case senario I will ruin the crank and have to buy a new one anyway.

My hope is that the guy I bought it from will pay to have it fixed or maybe split the cost of the upgrade? Any idea how much a crank for this engine might be?