I was able to get it all done last night and yes the red o ring worked great. I test fit it outside of the truck and it was tight and didn't rip the o ring. Also for anyone reading this forum post, the OTC 1025 2 arm puller works absolutely perfect for pulling the crank sprocket, I didn't need a hose clamp or anything. Everything went smooth it just took me forever because I did this at my storage unit and without a creeper. My back hurts like a mf but I got 60psi cold idle and the nasty ticking went away about about 10 minutes of running. I did have some metal shavings on the drain plug so I think the cam is or was slowly getting chewed up by a lifter so down the road I'll rip the heads off and do a cam and lifter swap but for now my engine runs smooth again and got really quiet, I'm very happy I was able to get it done

 

Thank you red x ray for telling me about the puller by the way, and thank you all for the advice so I was prepared

 

The only thing I was kinda worried about was I removed my front cover before the oil pan so I didn't see how it lined up to the oil pan and although i got the crank pulley bolted all the way up first to center the cover once I torqued the cover each side had a slight lip over the block, each side stuck down ever so slightly lower than the block but I just used a decent amount of black silicone and ran it in with my fingers to make up for it. I guess I'll find out soon if it sealed up correctly or if I messed up the alignment a bit