Here we go, pretty soon this will have escalated to a full rebuild before it ever gets on the road. It's so easy to spend someone else's time and money. Pull the plugs out if you must and spin it with the starter to preoil. Squirting a little Diesel oil in the cylinders before you spin it will probably help too, if you want to go that far. Why not squirt a little gasoline in and see if you can get it to fire.

Believe it or not, after 30 years sitting in a barn there will still be a little oil between the bearing shells and the crank journals.

Literally millions of 318s have run with whatever the stock oil filter plate was with no main bearing problems whatsoever. I repeat, start out with the easiest things first. My '71 318 donor truck sat under a big spruce tree for 20 years and with a little prodding ran well enough to get it onto the trailer, then off and into its final resting place.

R.