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I also suggest a thorough examination of the entire cam and valve train. As Flackmaster said early on that is a very hefty gear.. To have that much damage supposedly because of two stuck valves I would think there is likely to be more issues or at least more damage somewhere else -- at the very least I would say the timing chain would also be suspect and thoroughly check out the oil pump. If it is frozen that could also have caused the problem.

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I appreciate it, but don't worry about the gear, someone already offered me one and it's already payed for and in transit. You still need to let me know what I owe you for that starter that caused all these problems 😂.

How far out does the oil pump need to be to disengage? It's been slow trying to pull it out,just can't get a good grip to twist it well enough. I've got it about two inches out, but need to work at it further.

Cam does feel pretty free for a tiny bit of movement, so it's not sized in the bearings, but that could very well be the lash in the engagement with the dizzy/oil pump drive gear.

I will absolutely drop the pan to evict the rodent residence, and inspect, however I'm not going to pull the head. The rotating assembly feels smooth and nice in its rotation now, so I don't expect any cylinder issues, and if there's any major problems I find underneath, I'll probably just go to work on the 359 instead.

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OK, I'll put it back on the pile. As for proceeding without pulling too much more apart, stock up on SeaFoam engine cleaner and lots of cheap oil to run through the motor....several friends of mine swear by the seafoam... lots of discussion out there on resurrecting motors in general.
And somewhere on this site there is discussion about oil flow pathways on the 356 motors via the oil filter, etc. You might want to look that up as well.

If the engine were in some models the 356 pump body might need to be turned 180 to clear the frame before it could slide straight out. On an out of the car engine the pump should just pull out.

There is nothing contacting the block inside except a couple of round machined surfaces on the pump stem that slide in an also machined bore and provide seals. It could be there is some kind of heavy varnish or sludge inside the bore and the machined surface nearest the gear is getting caught. Not sure which hole but you said the mice apparently found an entrance hole near the pump so perhaps they brought in something that is blocking the path.

As I recall the gear is just a tiny bit smaller than the round machined surfaces. I do not think it is possible for any side play but be sure pump is straight and gear is not getting caught on the edge of the bore. One very unlikely issue could be if the pin holding the gear to the pump shaft has somehow worked out and is extending in the path.

If the gear seems to be clear you might see if you can slide a wooden dowel in from the distributor side to reach and push on the pump gear. Give that a few GENTLE taps and see if the shock can help move the pump

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The rule of thumb is to NEVER power crank an unknown engine! Always hand-turn it a few times and even then do so only after checking the pan and putting oil in all the cylinders. You’ve been given great advice here but you chose to ignore most of it so the starter did not break the gear, you did. You’ll get the same advice on Facebook so it’s not clear what was expected when you posted the problem there too.

As above, just old oil varnish keeping it in, had to get a pipe wrench to add just that little bit of extra twist past what my hands could achieve. Definitely not the problem there, spins freely, and even had a bit of oil still in it. Definitely just a whole bunch of stuck valves. I've been able to coerce them into letting the cam rotate a bit more, but the intake on cyl 8 is stuck very hard, closed too. Seems to be the biggest problem there.

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Lol I was saying that tounge in cheek. Again, I had no reason to believe that anything was stuck, and had no way to turn it over completely by hand ahead of time. Also never heard of breaking a timing set like that, everything seemed fine on inspection.

To be fair, I'm still shocked the gear shattered like that, I would have expected the key to shear long before that gear would break. That's usually one of the points of having a key, a mechanical fuse.

I wonder if the damage was done prior you working on this engine? Ernie in Arizona

That was my first thought, but all the breaks looked clean and new,didn't see any signs of previous damage. It did snap pretty cleanly off the sharp inside corner of the keyway, but couldn't say it was a preexisting flaw.