hey i recently put new piston and rings and new wrist pin. and now only around a month and a half later the motor is smoking and knocking. i noticed when it was apart that the connector rod on the crank had abit of side to side place, is this normal or bad crank.

 

The side by side play is normnal....to an point...IMO opinion sound like your atv has been deep water.....Sometime when water gets into engine oil...the fine grit on sand and dirt gets inbeded in crank bearings! You can keep washing out with new oil is no good....The only way that I know of is to split crankcase an replaced crank and bearings.....But also sometimes people don't flush out oil cooler when engine get an total rebuild job....This is also need to be done.....Did you rebore cylinder with new piston?But if engine has had some ruff playing in water IMO i would replaced crank and bearings,cam and bearings,cam chain,oil pump....This just me tho...I am sure others will chime in......Good Luck..

 

I pulled the cylinder off today and one of the locator dowels fell down into the motor. To get it out can I just remove the motor and put the motor on its side and remove just the top side of the crank case without having to mess with the gears and other stuff?