[aigel]

I always liked buying a short block and redoing the heads locally. Get me to look at most of the innards, like crank, pistons, connecting rods etc. and matching the intake and exhaust to the original heads is usually safer / easier than taking in an all new machine. the short blocks are usually a lot less $$$ too.

That said, I'd drive that truck. 300k is doable. I sold my Sequoia V8 with 230k and the engine was the last thing that was getting tired ...

G