I had the motor give to me in a totaled truck. got the motor out and the passenger cam got hit and broke the sprocket and bent two valves. had the head worked on and a cam from a motor shop down the road. i asked the guy there how he sets the timing on them because i have never worked on a ford or a over head cam. he told me to turn the key way on the crank 90 deg. straight up and down and the gear timing dot should be on 7 o'clock. and to bolt the head down and put the chains on were both the one marked link on the chains were on the dot and to roll the cams were the chain marks lined up and it would be timed. he said i didn't have to worry with TDC OR anything else. that just seems to easy. the book i got is way more complicate than that saying u need cam locking tools. will his way work and if not how do i need to do it

 

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You need to put the crank to TDC. This may or may not have the keyway in a particular position, but if the keyway does go to where he told you, it can be there twice per revolution of the crank, so the engine might not be at TDC just because the keyway is in the position sited.

The cams have a dot stamped into the sprocket, you need to align the dots along the centerline of the sprockets. You need a straight edge that goes from one dot to the other and includes the center point of the camshafts. Since the engine is at TDC, you want the valves to be closed on the #1 Cylinder. TDC is the top of the compression stroke, as the spark plug fires to drive the piston down.