You can take the rocker rails off now.
The intake should just lift up. Many times the gaskets have cold welded themselves on, so you may have to pull hard.
The pushrods should be put back where they belong. If you think one has a bend, replace it - they are dirt cheap.
Ive used a buff pad on the end of my drill to clean the block.
Sounds like you are doing good

 

rockers, pushrods, and lifters should all be back in the same place they came out of.

 

Thanks guys,
I'm ordering Head gasket set now. Leaning toward a Victor Reinz set.
There were no gaskets on my headers. Flush mount Is this normal? As well there were no donut in the exhaust. I guess that is the design.
Intake had a metal gasket. Head gasket looked ok and was hard to see where the problem was.

Anyone ever use "the right stuff " Permatex silicone sealant in lieu of an intake gasket set on a dodge 318? Can it be done? Is there a huge gap with those cross-over front and back rubber pieces? Works on Ford 302 perfectly.

 

I just used RTV on in place of the china-wall gaskets on Chevy engines. Just lay a good bead, let it skin over, then set the manifold straight down. I think I actually used the gaskets on the magnum engines though.....

 

About the gaskets...yes my Magnum has both intake and exhaust gaskets. I had a situation where someone before me didn't use exhaust gaskets on my motor and it would make a very annoying ticking sound at times. (when I first got the van) I think a old school Dodge tech must have worked on it before because Magnums are supposed to have gaskets...some older V8s I was told did not have gaskets. Ive always used exhaust gaskets on everything other than my snowblower and lawnmowers

 

This manifold it 1/3 my body weight, heh. I may have to rig some guide pins either way so I don't make a Sloppy Joe sandwich out of the manifold install.

 

Got the engine stripped down. Can't get the water pump off! Am I missing a bolt? All 7 "bracket" bolts are out. I don't want to break anything LIKE THE TIMING COVER.

HOUR LATER: EDIT: I switched from rubber mallet to 2x4 and solid hammer :-) Got it off. Didn't look or feel too bad. But since I do not know the age of this pump, she's getting replaced at this point. There is a bracket on EVERY bolt on this pump. Jeeesh. Tomorrow, timing cover. Got the pulley and balancer off with an new impact wrench. Nice!

This engine is the greasiest ever. Can't figure out the source of oil leak yet. there was a ton inside the lower pulley. and the block is coated all the way around to the upper side of the Bell housing! Maybe trans lines blowing back oil? Or crappy intake seal.
I don't know how oil leaking from the crank seal could move forward against the wind, heh. What do you guys think?

I'm cleaning all of the major oil spillage up so I will know from scratch whether I've cured this oil leak or not.

 

I hope you took pictures of all those brackets before taking them off.
The oil mess could be the front and rear crankshaft seals leaking.

 

Ha, I got pictures and about 20 little bags with parts labeled!! But still gonna need some prayer time getting it all back together.
I got the timing cover off. The timing chain is pretty loose. Glad I bought a new timing chain set. (i got this one https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-g6603r-9)
I placed the cam marker and crank marker at Top Dead Center, cam dot at 6 o'clock, crank at 12 o'clock.
as I understand, the distributor should point at #1.
Well, it points at #6 (I marked the cyl numbers on the cap before taking stuff apart.
If I rotate to when it is on the 1, the cam dot is actually at 12 o'clock!

Could someone have put the cam gear on wrong (both cam and crank straight up at 12 o'clock) and then compensated by reversing the distributor?
It definitely was running fine this way.

Or am I missing something?

If the setup is factory correct, should the distributor rotor point toward the front of the engine? 1 is near the front?

 

With the gears dot to dot, number 6 is in firing position. Just line them up on the stock set, pull the gears, reinstall the new set the same way, without moving anything, and it'll be fine.