Was running good. now not so well

me and mrb2000 worked on the truck to finally get it running this past week. installed a new oil pump and water pump. found the motor to be 180

BUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sounds like the oil pump was bad

hey todd, i'm not understanding how the oil pump can cause the engine not to run properly. i mean the whole situation has me baffled also....

if it wasnt getting enough oil pressure you could have lost a bearing hence the knock and running crappy

that does seem plausible

after the incident i went over to the truck and reset the timing to the #1 mark on the cam shaft insted of the stamped dot and reset the dist. about 3 teeth. it is running again but no power and if the timing is adjusted it gets what seems to be a spark knock. now the initial knocking has gone away but there is the " spark knock"

Pull the O2 sensor out of the exhaust manifold. That will open up the exhaust enough to allow you to tell whether the exhaust is clogged.

wow never thought of that but it makes sense... thanks tweak

thanks for all the suggestions. todd if it were the brand new oil pump (me and mrb2000 just installed [well mostly mrb2000] last week) not putting out enough pressure, wouldn't the dummy light come on? I know thee light works because it used to come on everytime i drove with the old motor. It has rained all day today, so i haven't messed with it yet. Ive had the valve cover off with the old oil pump, (while the motor was running {for about 5 seconds}) it was pumping oil like crazy. I just dont get how it was driving fine with plenty of power, no noise, then when i shut it off for about 5 mins, crank it back up and it runs like ass. I discovered #2 and #3 plug wires to be off the plugs, not completely but enough to where they weren't snapped over the plug, thats where i think the knocking was coming from. Snapped those back tight on the plugs but that didn't fix the problem. I just dont understand (unless as said the exhaust somehow clogged itself with some of the {who knows how old} oil and soot that was blowing through it with the old motor). My only other thought at this point in time is maybe the distrib. cap and button. They both look to be pretty warn (no black tarnish, slight white film on button and point in the cap [and who knows how old they are]), the points in the cap look to be worn down a bit.