Head Gasket repair or motor swap
 

Well this morning I just confirmed my truck blew its head gasket. Now the question is do I go through with full repair or maybe just swap to a different used motor and slowly rebuild the one I take out? So I'm looking for some opinions from y'all.
The truck is a 1987 Chevy R20 Silverado 4x2
Motor is a Chevy 350 5.7L TBI but it is a replacement marine motor not the original with long tube headers and true dual exhaust 700R4 trans and 4:10 posi rear end

Re: Head Gasket repair or motor swap
 

What you do comes down to one key question.... What is your budget for the project? There are a myriad of ways to go but it all comes back to that one question.

Re: Head Gasket repair or motor swap
 

Well since my Dad is a master mechanic and Im am very mechanically skilled as well and we have the tools we would be doing the work ourselves. So probably looking at a budget of between $600-1100 right now. I could maybe bump it up with working some more overtime, but this kinda hit me out of the blue. So I really don't have an oh **** fund like I normally do since I just started a new job and have done other work on the truck previously that ate away at savings since it's my daily driver.

Re: Head Gasket repair or motor swap
 

Did the truck overhead at all when the head gasket failed? If its a daily driver, and you're confident that the block is fine, I would think its best to get it back on the road for now. Maybe still pick up a used motor, and build that one up to be ready to do a swap later on down the road? There's lots of ways to go about it... but if it's a daily driver I would lean towards getting it back on the road sooner.

Re: Head Gasket repair or motor swap
 

I would question what condition the short block is in? Is oil pressure still good? What about a compression check on the bank that still has a good head gasket? If the short block is good, I'd swap the head gasket and get it back on the road. If the short block is near done, I'd consider other options.

Re: Head Gasket repair or motor swap
 

According to my temp gauge it hit 230* but it never shutdown due to over heating. I'll be pulling the heads tv is weekend to check how bad it is and get a better idea of what to do. Unfortunately for me I don't know truck motors as well as I'd like to my forte outside of welding is motorcycles.

Re: Head Gasket repair or motor swap
 

I would inspect both the head and the block really well if its just the gasket with no crack in anything else id replace the gasket until you can do the proper rebuild or repair as soon as you can save up the bucks

Re: Head Gasket repair or motor swap
 

Word. ^

Re: Head Gasket repair or motor swap
 

Awesome follow-up after 5 years!

Re: Head Gasket repair or motor swap
 

Glad to know you're on duty.