Hey thanks for the feedback! You confirmed exactly what I did. I decided not to mess with the timing cover and front seal, and to just put it all back together without a full rebuild. I bought new heads last week -- new castings, valves, and springs, not rebuilt. Also got new pushrods, rocker arms, fuel injectors and a bunch of new sensors which were all fouled up with mud. I've never taken the truck off road, but I think the previous owner must have lived in a mud puddle. I scraped two inches of mud off the TOP of the intake manifold. Finally got everything cleaned up last weekend which was a royal PITA. The Roloc brushes worked great but it was slow going because I don't have a great compressor.
My son and I got the new heads, lower intake, fuel injectors, and fuel rail on today. So I'm making progress! But so much more cleaning to do under the hood. I'm also installing all new radiator and heater hoses, water pump, thermostat, fan/clutch, and power steering hoses. It'll be like a new truck only a lot less expensive! This thing doesn't owe me much up to this point after 10 years of service so I can't argue with what I'm spending.
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