5.0 mainbearsing and oil pump replacement!

[yarddog1950]

I know there were engines with flimsy bottom ends, mostly old junk with three main bearings and they require crankshafts and so on before the rest of engine was ready for overhaul. The Ford 289 has a flimsy crank and small journals but somewhere along the road to growing it into a 302, I think they strengthened the bottom end. At what point, I don’t know.
An engine in need of a crank might very well need an align bore and rebuilt rods.
Have you performed a wet and dry compression test? If you have unsatisfactory compression, it makes no sense to replace the crank and bears alone.
I think the best suggestion was to find another motor. You don’t need one until you’ve run the 302 into the ground.
If you look for a good low miles Ford V8 with more displacement, it will work well in a PU with typical numerically low rear end gears. You don’t want to match a bigger engine to a 4.11 rear end. Do you know what you have for gears now? Maybe you know what RPM your truck does at 65 or 70 mph.
A little 302 is probably fine in a half ton PU if you rarely carry any real weight in it.
When I have looked for used engines, somehow I was never in a hurry and managed to find a few that were underpriced. I even found a Chevy 350 that I sold for $950. The fellow selling it knew it was worth more than the $300 I paid, but he didn’t care.