How bad can it be?

This is going to sound whacked, but I have done this dozens of times with success.

Dress the crank and or rod journals with crokus cloth strip.
Take the bearing halfs out of the cap and drag the cap on a good file switching ends every other stroke to help uniformity. (Dragging it toward you matters to stability)
2 strokes or so then flip it around and 2 or so more.
Put the bearing half's back in the cap and stroke that on the file once one way and flip the cap for one more stroke.
(Note that you have bearing crush)
Rinse the cap and bearing off then put it together with the plasti gauge to check.

I used to work at a car lot as the main mechanic, and they sold a bunch of S10’s that used to have rod knocks.
Remember those?
We would take them in for 5-600 and resell them for 3-4k with no rod knocks and good oil pressure.

Fixed a Fiat Sport Spyder the same way and drove it for years until I traded it for a 66 Ranchero.

TrailBeast, are you effectively knurling the back sides of the rod bearings to tighten up the oil clearance gap to the crankshaft?


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