In-truck Head Removal - need advice

[highperf4x4]

I would invest the money in a valve job if it was me. They really only need to replace the valves that are too bad to be turned and using a reputable machine shop will give you more piece of mind. Sometimes the reman head shops go through them too fast to do a good job and you really don't know if they did a 3 angle grind or a 2 angle on the valves and seats.

I would also recommend doing both. If you find that you have to rebuild the engine sooner than expected you won't have to do anything with the heads but pull them off and put them back provided that you didn't overheat the engine or throw a rod.

As for the bottom end, if your oil pressure is ok, it wasn't smoking at higher rpms, you don't have any rods making noise, there isn't any copper in the lifter galley and all the lifters appear to be rising to the same height then you're probably ok.

So, I would do the valve job, clean everything up and slap it back together. Since you have it torn down this far, I'd probalby go ahead and replace the timing chain and front seal too.