I specifically did not weld the crank like that, both for strength and maintaining centering, (at least to my way of thinking), and because I didn't want to heat up that area and take a chance of overheating and/or weakening the rod pin or roller bearing.

You might check to see if the "foreign object" wasn't a piece of rod roller bearing....

Anyone have crankcase or two they would like to sell??? Keith said he sold the last of them to someone in California that participates in this thread, and that he told him I would want a couple. Don't know who it is...

AV8TOR