Looking past the point that I hate eagle crankshafts, that knurling is designed for rope seals. When I would polish the crankshafts after cleaning them for the last time I would spend some time with a narrow sanding belt on the sealing surface of the crank. I was worried about my seal leaking on my 440 so I cut .010" off the seal retainer. Well, it leaked like no other on the dyno so I was forced to pull the pan and replace the seal retainer with one that hadn't been cut, but just cleaned up on a flat surface with some fine sandpaper. One new half piece of seal and the new retainer later, no leaks. Good thing too because I didn't put it back on the dyno and my next test session was in the truck. God was looking out for this idiot.

I'm not against rope seals. I feel you did what you had to as that knurling was in the earliest mopars out there and all they had for seals were rope seals.