Just a thought....good advice from Tuts 59 and Doc 41.....but why take a chance? The few minutes you spend pulling the distributor is going to be a lot less time than replacing a bearing. Even if you don't hand rotate the engine a couple revs, you're at least going to have the oil pump primed and everything partially lubricated with oil.
You would be best to spin the pump with the OLD OIL, remove the plugs, give it a couple squirts with Marvel Mystery oil in each cylinder, hand rotate the crank a couple times....drop in the distributor, spin it with the starter, pop in some new plugs, prime sparingly with starter fluid, and get the engine fired.
Once you've got it fired and heated up, drain the oil, clean out the oil filter can, add new filter and make sure you soak it and fill up the filter can. The bypass filter doesn't filter all the oil at once but it will bleed off oil pressure to the mains, until it gets filled. I found that totally bypassing the filter gave me 5-7 psi more operating oil pressure.
These old engines are tough....why not give them the best possible chance to start up and provide years more of good service. I try to remember that "the hurrier I go, the behinder I get."
Hope this helps.
Dave
