Well it’s been along drawn out job but it’s done. Engine runs and sounds great, this job has had ALOT of firsts for me, and has been a great learning experience I’ve never gone this far into a motor before, so I had ALOT to learn. That is a big reason why it’s been so drawn out, thanks to resources like this forum and others I was able to find all the info I needed to get this job and some others done while I was at it. before I dug into do the head gasket, the lifters where ticking fairly loud so I looked them over and they were stuck solid no movement at all, so I was able to take them apart clean them up and reinstall them, the motor sounds new tick is gone. Figured I may as well check the valve seats since the heads where off so I found info on checking for leaky valve seats and how to lap the valves, also changed the valve stem seals while I had the springs off.
I had to learn how to properly set valve lash for the hydraulic lifters. I’ve never removed a distributor before I’ve never needed to do it on this truck and my other car is a lot newer and don’t have one it has coil over packs. Like a dummy I removed it without marking anything so I had to learn how to install it and how to get it retimed, and how to get the oil pump shaft realigned with the distributor it didn’t turn out to be hard but still was something new I had to learn.
The people on this forum have been great with my questions, through my quest of knowledge I have visited many threads and watched many videos; I wish I could personally thank everyone who helped me along the way.
I ran into a few problems along the way but the job turned out to be a complete success.