head or engine?

[bruserM42]

im a newbie, trying to figure out whether I have a bad head or if the whole engine is shot.  Mechanic said it was one or the other but wanted couple hundrend dollars to tell me. it has been sitting for close to a year now and would like to get it back up and running. can anyone help me?

[monty23psk]

what is happening, then we can try to diagnose it?

[victor.askew]

A few test you can preform yourself:
1
Compression test. Will let you know if your head gasket,valves  and valve guides are ok.
2
Leakdown test with cda. If air comes out of the exh with the exh valve in the closed position you may have a burned valve or a bent exh valve stem. Rotate engine by hand and inject cda into each cylinder. When I did mine last month I also had the oil drain plug removed, If cda had come from there it wld have been a possible piston ring failure
3
I am told that the bottom end of these engines are very very tough, and unless it has been abused in some way it should be good.
Good luck with this.