Why you should always pull the galley balls when servicing a crankshaft.

[RealMcCoy]

I was cleaning up and polishing some cranks today... Figured I'd take some pics.

First pic is the gunk packed under the ball completely blocking the galley hole, second pic is that same gunk scraped out onto a piece of paper. The third pic is "most" of the gunk scraped out of the three cranks I cleaned up today..

All three were very clean non spun standard cranks that had been thoroughly cleaned first...

[Unlogic]

How do you secure the balls again once they have been removed?

[RealMcCoy]

I remove the balls by welding a stud to them. The heat on the ball distorts it and relaxes the press fit. The crank is undamaged. I just drive in a new ball and stake it in similar to how the factory did.