you can do it

 

So my mechanic buddy came by tonight when he got off work. Pointed out a few things that I could do and how to do them. He's coming back tomorrow with HIS tools and helping me take off the heads. Then he's going to run it somewhere and do something with some straightening bar or something to check and see if it's kaput or not. If it's still good and just a blown gasket, I'll take my time putting it back together. If not, we'll rig it the best we can and get it functional enough to trade in!

Woohoo!

 

{cool little hand clapping emoji} good to hear. surely, he is taking heads to machine shop to have them checked. good luck
very nice looking truck, by the way.

 

Tell your pal that many of us struggle with the rear bolts on the heads, a breaker bar, and three inch extension, seems to fit better. He'll want to bring his cheater pipe as well.

The check for flatness is a good thing, the spec is .002 inch, or about half the thickness of you printer paper. This is checked with a flat reference metal and a feeler gauge. If OK, then have at it. If not, machining heads can sometimes be had for $40 a side, or $250 for both if they throw in a valve job as well, they'll use some of your parts from the HG kit. BTW, new head bolts are the standard, these are torque to yield (stretch bolts).

So if you get this truck running, are you going to trade it, or maybe you could make more on a sale.

Oh, and tell us you are not trading for an FJ.....