I pulled the pan today as my parts were due in this afternoon - though the UPS website now says delayed until tomorrow due to the weather - nasty thunderstorms.

The oil pump shaft clip was there, but the retaining tabs are deformed so it was loose. The shaft was out of the oil pump, though it had been assembled correctly. It was scratched in 2 places, but probably reusable if dressed down smooth. It will be a spare. Doing a web search, it seems others have had clip failures too with resulting dropped drive shaft. This is my second "event", the first was on my '63 Galaxie with a 406 - way back then. Obviously, Ford still hasn't had a better idea on oil pump drives.

Since this was the first time oil had been circulated - ever - as it is a crate engine, I was amazed at the amount of crud in the pan. I had done other work on the engine, ARP bolting, 'better' camshaft and head hardware but in an extremely clean environment. Some of the crud is soft so I expect that there is some assembly lube carryover - the rest is gritty. I'm posting this as a heads up to others - crate motors don't always have clean innards!!!!