Finding an engine for my 4-speed

[Penthouse Pauper]

My '69 came with an A-833 (and no other driveline components), and I'm pretty sure it's a 23 spline. I'd like to find a 440 for it, but only the later truck and RV motors are in my budget and common in my area. I'm trying to figure out if there are any engines I should steer clear of if I want it to mate up to my transmission without a total teardown. I need to move my car a lot to work on it, and it would make the process a lot easier if I could throw a running engine in it and drive between buildings. I remember last time I tried looking into this, that some crankshafts would need modification to accept a pilot bearing. If I go look at an engine, how can I tell the difference between ones that would and would not accept the pilot bearing? If it wouldn't, should I consider that a deal breaker or is the modification fairly easy to do?
Thanks!

[GreenMachine]

One option is to use a pilot bearing that fits into the torque converter hub on the crank. They're used in later model vehicles. If the crank isn't drilled deep enough for the input shaft length, you can either drill it yourself, or just cut off a small piece on the trans input shaft, which I've read is fairly common.

https://www.rockauto.com/en/parts/national,FC69907,clutch+pilot+bearing,1964

Also, the crank can be drilled but not honed for the standard bushing. There are both size bronze bushings out there to fit either.

[John_Kunkel]

The undrilled crank flange is shown in the pic below. To use a 4-speed with this crank you need the bearing mentioned above and need to shorten the input shaft pilot.

[metallicareload99]

Both the running 440s I have wouldn't accept normal pilot bushings. A forged crank, even though the bore wasn't reemed to size, will still clear the input shaft pilot using the bearing mentioned above, so no problem there.

A cast crank will most likely have a shallow hole not deep enough, a problem as mentioned. I'll tell you what I did, but I'm not telling you what to do, as there are better ways to go about it. With my cast crank I drilled by hand progressively larger holes until I got enough clearance, and then I used the pilot bearing that fits in the converter register

[Penthouse Pauper]

Thanks for the info guys!
I'm happy to know that whatever engine I find can be made to work. That makes the search a lot easier. I don't know why this never occurred to me before, but my car did come with a pile of rusty 383 parts. Among those parts was a drilled crank, so if I do attempt the 'drill it out' method I do have a factory one to try and mimic.