Rear crank oil seal dilema

[Wiggles (Paul Wigton)]

Starting main rear seal and crankshaft reassembly. Words of wisdom?

I rebuilt my 1967 3.4L engine last year. The Churchill tool I borrowed from JCNA had a sizing diameter of 3.119". The crankshaft seal diameter was 3.125". So assuming no seal springback (unlikely) the crankshaft will compress the seal by at least 0.003" radially. I did not trim the seal and the gasket set I used came from SNG Barratt as Payen EE532. It was pretty hard to turn the crank after the seal was buttoned up. With the seal oiled, it took 25 lb.ft. to unstick the rotation, obviously l…