So he's trying to say the overspray is what clogged the pickup. Heck that worn out timing chain is probably what did it. It probably had a nylon top gear and the nylon came off and clogged the pickup. I've seen that happen on almost all old engines that used a nylon gear.
I ran into a similar situation when I worked for Hyster forklifts. Resealed a old worn out engine cause the owner was too cheap to rebuild it. A few months later it blew up and of course it was my fault since I was the last guy that worked on it. I ran into alot of people like that and from then on I started writing on the work order that the engine was worn out and really needed rebuilt but the customer only wanted it resealed. That way they had no argument with me.