My brother and I pulled the motor on my car to install all new gaskets, and we found a lot of metal shavings in the oil pan. Many are fairly small, but there were a few large pieces also (half to three quarters of an inch). Does this sound like bearings gone bad? This is on a forged bottom end 383 that had a supercharger on it for about 15k miles. We've basically taken everything off the block except the crank and the cam. How hard is it to replace bearings? And how do I know what size bearings I need?

 

That doesn't sound to good. Do you see any scarring on any parts, check your crank and rods. You should expect some tiny particals, but 3/4 of an inch is kinda big. Good luck.

 

It sounds like youve spun some bearings and they worked themselves out of the crank journals and into the oil pan. Exact same thing happend to a buddy of mine. One of the peices in his pan was so big that I drilled a hole in it and wore it as a necklace.

 

If you have found any metal shavings over just a fine smesh then if it were me since the motor is out of the car I would take it to a machine shop for inspection and/or honing and bearing change. Also have the crank checked for wear. Get it internally balanced. Just insurance to make sure you don't have to pull the motor agian in the near future for an internal problem.
HVY SS

 

Tear it down for inspection.
Ya have to measure everything to get the sizes's for the brg's.