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Mike I wonder if that knurling issue, you aren't the first to suggest this, will over time eat up the rope seal and cause a leak?

We used an eagle crank on the enginemasters build and had a weeping rear main seal, it used the orange lip seal.

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One of the things I was looking at is the knurling and this is what I have found.

First off all of the factory stock cranks are knurled..... all of the early big and small blocks came with a rope seal so I don't believe there is an issue with a knurled crank and a rope seal used together.

One thing I did was that was very interesting was this. I installed a lip seal up in the block. I then applied a very thin coat of white grease on the crank where the seal rides. I then rotated the crank to see what the pattern looked like. I was surprised that the seal lip does not ride on the knurled portion of the crank. The seal lip contacts the crank in front of the knurling....between the knurling and the rear main cap. I was shocked to see this but I never done this before. Learn something new every day!!

One more thing that I saw today that blew me away. I was at a friends shop today and I saw something that just killed me. There was a aftermarket billet seal retainer just sitting there. Next to it was a factory seal retainer. I matched the two of them back to back and the overall height was the same BUT the aftermarket cap....where the seal sits was OFF CENTER by .040!! That is a MILE off!!!! Tomorrow I will go back and take a picture for everybody viewing pleasure.