just noticed your signature, looks like we both live in Leadvegas

ok here's my story. Character limit made me do several posts and now they read from bottom to top. See what fun you've been missing out on.

Here's my plan:

New enginebuilder street RV head with 268 cam. I don't think there is anything wrong with my head now, but if I'm pulling that bitch off I'd rather put a new one in, not to mention who knows how bad off the valves are. Same with the cam. As far as the timing chain goes, I figure if I'm in there I should change it. I'm hoping the water pump and oil pump are cool. I have been a little concerned about the bottom, but if they rebuilt all of that around 200k I should be pretty good.

What do you think about my situation?

Wind the clock back to about a year after I got it from you and was giving it a tuneup. The spark plug in cylinder number two was frozen in there from either not enough anti sieze or too much carbon built up on the threads on the back side. Either way I broke the damn thing off. What a mess that was. I somehow managed to get it out with a big ass screw extractor. All the little aluminum shavings and ceramic were mopped out with a coat hanger a wad of paper towels and lots of grease. Rethreaded the head and new plugs and fired right up. Whew.

Back to now: Well I can't get the 4th plug out, same issue and believe me after that last incident I used PLENTY of antisieze.

So hear I am leaky head gasket several stripped out spark plug holes. 4th cylinder not firing due to faulty plug or more.

Feeling good I got the transmission rebuilt and drove from Austin to Moab, Utah. Spent the next 6 weeks living out of the truck and climbing every route in the desert. When my body and budget couldn't take it anymore came back to work. Taken several more trips to the rockies and spent some time in Mexico. But the stop leak was just a bandaid and it has started loosing coolant (all internal) again. It gets real hot and them comes down to normal and right back to hot. This cycle goes on continuously. I've been told that means I'm loosing hot exhuast gases into the radiator. Not only is the gasket leaking, but it's started running like . Missing, loping, and zero power. I'm sure the valves and springs are shot, especially if only the bottom was rebuilt before.

Yeah, I was surprised when I started having transmission problems. Lost 4th in summer of 2008 and drove it almost a year shifting from 3rd to 5th.

I don't think I've got it as bad as 92 Toy. Here's the scoop:

About a year ago it starting running a little hot. I checked and added coolant. 2 weeks later same. No drips or external leaks, thought I was going crazy. Filled it again and this time about a week later it started blowing white smoke out the tailpipe and ran low on coolant again. I had to start filling it up with coolant everyday to keep it from overheating. All signs seemed to point to a failing headgasket. Since I had no 4th gear and the headgasket was leaking as bad as my bank account I threw a hail mary and tried some block sealer. I know it's nasty stuff, but it worked. No more coolant loss or white exhaust.