sorry to hear the bad news. I would do what you said, smash/remove t-stat and drive it...just no where it couldn't be towed from. Maybe sign up for AAA since you know a tow will probably be needed soon.

BTW, are rover t-stats opened by pressure and not heat like other t-stats?

 

Nite:

I couldn't correlate it to either, actually. When the engine would get hot enough to where it would build up pressure, it wouldn't open.. but it wouldn't open just from heat either. Very weird!

 

maybe the t-stat was sticking and it took A LOT of heat to expand the metal spring enough to open up instead of normally taking a little heat to just melt the wax.

 

You can deff. re-use your heads. New heads are big bucks. I've never seen a head go bad on these. I'm sure someone has. If you go into the shop manual it gives you a spec. on how thin the head can be cut to. It actually leaves you alot to cut. The valves and seats can be cut and Bam! Good heads at a fraction of the cost. Good to see you get a new shortblock though. I've seen them and they are alot better that the older ones.

 

the only other consideration on using the heads is that if you make a few cuts to the head surfaces then there is a good chance that the intake manifold will also need some cutting as every cut from stock changes the intake to head surfaces. you should do a dry fit without the intake gaskets first to see how far off the angles are

 

We had heads cut often at the dealer and never had a problem with the intake fit. They usually only take off .010-.015 to clean up heads. Thats a very small amount. I've never had a head cut to the min. thickness but I could see having that issue then.