I see some people selling engine blocks with the balance shafts removed. I thought this was a no no. I thought I read somewhere that each balance shaft was bored/matched to that particular side of engine and not interchangeable. yes/no?

 

believe its just the covers that should stay with the block like the crank girdle

 

Covers are numbered to match the block.. put a mismatched set together and you better have a subscription to a newspaper so you can catch the oil leaking on the garage floor..

 

The covers are line-bored with the block. Mismatch will likely result in the shafts binding during rotation.

 

Yup this happened to me during reassembly of my engine. Was loosely putting the covers on and found the shafts were binding as I started to tighten the housing down. Realized I had the covers on the wrong sides lol.

 

You know I see this ALL the time on E-Bay; (late) balance shaft covers and crank girdles being sold by themselves. I've messaged a few of these sellers to inform them of the error in doing this, but they seem not to care. I do believe you could get away with swapping covers on the years that have the bearing caps separate from the covers though...