Sorry for the long post but I'm going to describe my situation the best I can. I inherited a 1974 F-100 with a 302. The truck was "functional" before sitting in a garage for 5-6 years. I'm not a mechanic but I've done a top end rebuild successfully on my Dad's 1973 F-100 also with a 302.
Before I did any work to the truck I had it towed. All fuel lines and gas tank were replaced. Then mechanic did new plugs, wires, oil etc. At that point we were seeing low compression on 2 cylinders and there was a manifold gasket leak. I decided to do a top end rebuild. My uncle at some point showed me paperwork for new pistons, bearings, lifters etc.
I assumed I'd be fine with just rebuilding top end.
I replaced distributor, heads, converted to roller rockers, all new gaskets, thermostat, weiand 8124 intake, 4 barrel Edelbrock 600 cfm carb, new alternator, battery, coil, starter solenoid, water pump and timing chain.

Here's where the variables set in. I had a mechanic friend helping me one day and we did the valve adjustment and dumped the oil. He, for some reason, didn't remove the drain plug all the way to dump all the oil. So somehow, my first crank was with too much oil. Before putting the truck on the road I let it idle for 45 minutes. I adjusted valves again and made sure no leaks. Everything had full compression and sounded great. No knocks, no smoke and a perfect idle. When I checked oil it was not registering too high yet. I go down the road 1/4 of a mile and pulled over to look and it blew oil out of the dipstick. I bring it back and then I see that it has 3-4 quarts of too much oil. It was a sad day and I felt like an idiot.
Anyway, I drain the oil, take the valve covers off and blow as much oil as possible out. When I try to crank, nothing. Not locked but won't fire. I went back through the engine, changed all the gaskets and still nothing.

We cleaned all oil off if plugs but now 2 cylinders are fouling. At this point I sent it to a mechanic who swore he could take care of it. After he has it, he's telling me that the bottom end is tired.
I get the truck back twice on a tow truck. This time I suspected distributor so I take it out and it's missing a tooth. New distributor replacement resulted in an operating engine.
So now I have some serious blow by coming from dipstick on passenger side and PCV. I noticed he did not hook all vacuums back up. Truck doesn't smoke. It stutters and knocks during acceleration but it feels like a fuel situation to me. There's a bit of a rough idle and miss during acceleration but once it's going, it goes.
So, I'm wondering if I'm really suffering from a "tired bottom end" or if it could just be some tuning and vacuum issues. When I originally took the heads off, pistons were surprisingly clean. No extreme build up.
My uncle did have the work done but could it have just gone to waste by sitting for years?
I'm just very surprised that the truck feels at full power and shows full compression when I'm at 55-70mph. No smoke when cranking, idling or acceleration.
I'm going to try to get vacuums hook up correctly and the mechanic also didn't even hook up the line for the PCV valve.
Any suggestions or opinions before I open another can of worms or should I just start saving for a new engine?
Thanks in advance. I love this forum!

 

Vacuum lines need to be hooked up or it will run like crap

 

Vacuum lines need to be hooked up or it will run like crap.

And how do u put oil in a vehicle without checking the dipstick several times?

And how do you get down the road and check it, and 3-4 quarts too much it not registering too much already?

 

Good question. Checked it, for some reason not showing. By the time I was down the road it was blowing out the dipstick. That's when I figured it out.

Mechanic didn't put air cleaner back on and lost it. What's the best route for running PCV? I forgot to mention it's an Edelbrock 1406.

Thanks for reply, it's obvious I feel like a ******* for allowing the oil situation to happen but the fact is that it did happen unfortunately. The dipstick is one thing that was not changed and also doesn't quite seal like it may have in 1974 and I'm going to replace it as well.

 

Wow...you need new mechanics...

Definitely correct all the vacuum routing, but I would also recheck the plug wire routing and firing order, check spark on all the cylinders, take apart the carb and check float level (even new out of the box these are often incorrect on Edelbrocks), read and heed the Edelbrock tuning instructions and if you have changed the jetting set them back to the stock sizes until you get this straightened out, also check fuel pressure. You converted to roller rockers, but which ones did you use and are they compatible with your stock pushrod length, or did you replace the push rods with the correct length?

Here is my big concern; if you replaced the distributor at first and then found a tooth broken off later that is a problem. Something caused the tooth to break off, and I'm guessing it was a piece of metal that somehow got in there. I would recommend you drop the pan and see just how many metal pieces are in the bottom of it, or at least drop the pan to see if you can find the distributor's tooth or if it is still floating in the engine waiting to break something else.

If that checks out OK then I would check your compression. If compression checks out OK then I would recheck all your timing including your new timing chain. Don't trust the marks on the dampener, check for TDC yourself to make 100% sure.

Don't trust anything these genius mechanics have supposedly done, recheck everything, and then recheck everything you have already done. A "tired" bottom end may run weak but it can still run well. Good luck.