Mark,

Are you quite sure that the coolant/oil problem is the head gasket? Did the engine make any noise and then suddenly start the coolant/oil mixing?

Assuming that the problem is indeed the head gasket, with 300 pounds compression, I expect that the valve job, guides and head gasket would fix up the engine quite nicely.

I have no reason to believe that the Performance Products head is not okay, but that's a pricey way to go. I use an expensive machine shop and my head work was under $500.

Anyway, you said you knew about torqueing a head, are you aware of the two 90 degree angle torque steps for the MB engine?

You will only need to pull one pin as I recall. There is a puller for this but you really don't need it. If you have a long bolt that will thread into the pin, put a nut and washer or something under the bolt and tighten down, this will pull the pin.

You merely need turn the engine to TDC with the camshaft mark aligned with the cambearing stand mark which is on the front cam bearing stand about 45 degrees toward the drivers side. Leave the engine in this position while apart. Once the cam gear is off, pull tension on the chain and loop a piece of baling wire around it to tie it off somewhere(for city people, a coathanger makes an acceptable substitute for the high tech baling wire ) Then when removing the head, try to keep tension on the chain while holding the wire. Pull off the head, pull the wire through and tie it off again to hold tension.

If you lose the chain, it's not totally catastrophic, you can fish it out, but it will then require retiming, or at least checking the timing of the injection pump. If it comes down to pulling the injection pump, it will be a rather large job though.

With an engine of such good compression and using no oil, a fresh head will make a near new engine out of it.

I still have concern about the coolant/oil situation. A blown head gasket on these iron head, iron block engines is not common.

Best of luck,