Do I have to remove the heads to replace the crank bearings or can I just unbolt the piston rods and push the pistons into the cylinders to get them out of the way. That way I don't have to mess with the valvetrain.
You can do it I am about to do this myself. I have an engine that had a bad balancer on it. And even though the bearings are not bad I am gonna replace them anyway.
I rolled the bearings into my engine today. It is very time consuming but is not all that hard. On the mains you just push on the bearing opposite of the lock side and the spin the bearing out. Just do one at a time and make sure everything is clean. Also be careful not to scratch the crank. I just used a screw driver to push the bearings out but was very careful not to touch the crank with it. Spinning the crank will also help spin the mains out if one doesn't want to come out.