Head Gasket

[AK_Eagle]

A month or two ago I posted a topic called "dirty oil" in which I posted my problem (milky, sludgy oil) and a bunch of you had really good suggestions. Unfortunately, the problem has persisted and it appears that I have a head gasket that is compromised and/ or a bad water pump gasket. I am leaning toward the head gasket though because on the outside of the engine, you can see sludgy oil leaking out of both the head gasket and the valve cover gasket.
I have ordered a head gasket replacement kit (surprisingly cheap!) and have a couple mechanic friends that are willing to help me tackle the job, although I have recently been getting discouraged by a couple other mechanics I know. More than one person now has told me that I am better off finding a new engine
Is replacing the gaskets really that difficult of a job if I get someone who knows what they are doing to help me?
I couldn't find a good procedure on Eaglepedia for this either and any suggestions on helpful resources would be greatly appreciated!

[Sunny]

They are super cheap, it's the labor to do it.

It's not that hard to do, especially on an older engine, just a bit time consuming as long as you have decent mechanical knowledge.. If not, I wouldn't touch it.

However, the thing is if it's been overheating, etc you might have caused some damage internally.

At the very least, it's a pain in the butt to flush the cooling system and block a few times to get all the sludge out.

I looked for a writeup for you, but I couldn't find one.

[Draekon]

You'll definitely want to get the head checked for flatness.

[thereverendbill]

x2 on check the head for flatness.  Also the 258 heads are quite heavy so you may want to have a cherry picker handy to help ya get it out of the car. Best of luck on your repair