I mean…he’s a teenager so if a set of cheap headers and an open element air intake fell on it while this was all happening…

Yeah, I was thinking it's one of the better bearings I've seen after replacing a few rear seals over the years.On the plus side, that bearing looks decent.
If it wasn't for the missing seal, I would assume it was RTV from the intake swap. I don't thing I'm that excessive with the RTV and I don't think anything has been changed on this engine before we owned it. I also wonder if it could have been sludge from some point in the past when the oil wasn't changed for a long time. It did take quite a bit of effort to clean it all off the pickup screen.I have found stringy RTV in a few pans, made me think an engine was junk, when it came dangling out the drain plug while draining oil. Then drop the pan and not bad. New pump, clean the pan, new gasket and voila' fresh rebuild till I blew it up driving it like it was a high performance machine.
Exactly.Does anyone know what the little trap door in the oil pickup is for? It's spring loaded and pushes up into the pickup. My guess is it's there in case the screen gets plugged up