So I remember it was a bit galled when I took it apart the first time a few years ago, and I went to repack it the other night and it's worse than I remember (go figure, rode it about 1000 miles since then) it says J3 on it. 68mm bb. It's 116mm from end to end and about 37mm from the center of each race ridge to the end. End as in the end of the square taper, not the threaded portion.

This is on a 87 Panasonic dx-2000

get a New UN 55 cartridge BB same spindle length as yours, install it , and go on with your Life.

Bring all your BB parts into the city's Bike shop and they will help pick it for the right end match.

For Chain-line..

This. I replaced mine in my more common riders and never looked back.

Yup, I agree with the others. UN-55 all the way. So easy to deal with.

Amazon.com : Shimano UN55 BB Square Taper Bottom Bracket : Bottom Bike Brackets And Accessories : Sports & Outdoors

You will probably want the 68 x 115. Maybe 118?

Would have been a good idea to check a couple of things before tearing it down, but it's not to late to soft-install the existing bb and torque on the driveside crankarm to check for chainring clearance (you need 2+mm here) and chainline (carefully sighting along the sides of the clean chainrings to ascertain good centering with the freewheel's width).

Then measure the existing spindle's symmetry to be sure, and lastly order the needed bb spindle length bottom bracket.

I almost always shorten the driveside chainline dimension, to allow full-range usage of the rear cogs when in the big chainring.
For numerous reasons, I never use the small chainring with the smallest couple of cogs, so I have a slight bias for shorter spindles.
As well, the less expensive bikes from the old days always had way, way-overlengthed spindles to mitigate consequences (chanring rubbing, etc) of riding with both stem shifters left full-forward.

Thanks for the suggestions. I already put it back together again w/ new grease b/c I may or may not ride it this weekend depending on the weather. (I will ride... and if it's rainy than this is the bike I will ride)

I currently have a 1mm cassette spacer installed to remedy a deficiency with the 1st gear position on the shifter when in index mode... and with this setup the chain is precisely in line with the small chain ring when the 4th sprocket on the cassette is selected.. so with this in mind I guess I'll go with the 118.