I parked my truck 2 years ago because it was overheating a lot and I didn't have time to mess with it. My son helped my tackle the project last spring as the snow was melting. We found a broken head bolt, and it had been broken for a very long time. I got the truck 14 years earlier, and was told it was scrap. It would occasionally overheat and used a little coolant, but it worked so I kept driving it...until it finally puked coolant...and then it sat over winter because it was -20 outside. The guy I got it from must have tried to fix the head gasket (we found 3 layers of gasket material) and broke a head bolt when putting it together. That's why he told me it was scrap.
We got the broken bolt out , lapped the valves, lightly ported the head, and cleaned up the combustion chambers. It runs like a top and no more temperature problems. We built a flatbed for it and scrapped the old bed.
I still have the 4.10 gears, and I am VERY happy with the mpg.
