Richie-greetings, salutations! As JeffC stated, you should get ahold of the earlier "How To Rebuild Smallblock Chevy" book. Having torn down and rebuilt a large journal 327 smallblock (for my first car, a Chevy Vega) I can positively tell you that there is NO ball bearing in the earlier motors, like yours. Perhaps it is used to restrict oil flow to where the distributor would be in an older engine? Can't say for sure, but the most important thing is to get your hands on the CORRECT literature for the engine you are building. This is particularily important to someone who hasn't done it before. Best of luck to you sir. Hope you haven't gotten any greasy fingerprints on that book so you can still return it!
Regards,
Wannabe
