sorry paul , i meant to answer your Q earlier but.......... well sometimes an elephant forgets

in my findings over the years , the biggest sign of a bad front has literally came from excess oil leaking out the front bearing . when i pull the crank , which i tear my engines aprt for inspection fairly often , i am looking for some rust discoloring on the crankshaft that lets me know that the bearing has been seizing , bad bearing or just need cleaned out , reassembled and oiled if thats the case .