Hello everyone, I just signed in finally, after like a month of forgetting my password.

Straight to brass tacks, I've been working on Miles, my 84 B2000 Sundowner since last summer. He was just about ready to go and get inspected until an exhaust blockage let his coolant and oil mix. Seeing he'd been running vacuum leaks for as long as he's been running, I figured he'd burned through the head gasket, and went and changed it. Now though, I'm struggling to get the camshaft on. The timing cover, oil pan, and head are on and all but the head are bolted, sealed, and torqued. Aside from all the new seals and 2mm less soot buildup, this is exactly how the engine was when I removed the camshaft to get the head off. The chain tensioner is out, the access hatch lets me make sure the chain is seated on the crank, and I've turned the engine a few times to make sure a stray link didn't bunch itself up underneath. In my efforts to get the camshaft in, I've destroyed one of the bearings. So I'm asking for two things: anything y'all can think of regarding why the chain feels shorter; and a surrogate for the cam bearings, because I can't find them anywhere near enough. I fancy myself a half-decent fabricator, but I don't dare try to make internal engine components yet.