XJ/FJ600 engine rebuild - crankshaft bearings

Fellow XJ enthusiasts,

Recently, my XJ 600 has experienced some sterter clutch issues. I decided to fix it and since I had a slightly lower compression on one cylinder, I decided to take the engine apart, have the valve fixed, starter clutch and do a complete inspection of the engine. The bike is a weekend ride, nothing heavy. However I bought it without the cluster, no idea what the real mileage is.

The engine is in pieces and plastiguage arrived yesterday. All journals are almost identical and sadly it is out of spec as on the first picture. However, the bearing shells do not have signs of heavy abuse, they look quite fine to me. Does it prove that engine has very high milleage and they jsut got worn out? Wiill a new set of bearings fix it?

 

Did you bolt the cases together to the correct torque to check the clearances? Bearings don't look bad to me.

 

I did it twice, even used molybdenum disulfide grease on bolt threads, torqued to 24Nm as per service manual. Firs I hand tightened the bolts, and then in one continuous movement untill it clicked. Twice, I got exactly the same results, so I am assuming I did it right.

Also, I have another engine on the side, that I bought for a 6-pack, it had a spun bearing. I the same -- funny thing - that engined had bearings that looked far worse, one was spun, another was about to, and two of them were within spec and still looked bad.

The bearings colors are matching the codes on crank and engine case