Hey Lee, my post was not intentionally written to offend you, for that I sincerely apologise.
I didn't realise your vehicle is not readily to hand.
Perhaps I could of worded it differently, and now after your explanation of your situation then I would definitely of emphasised the 'tease' more adequately.
Back to business, and it's not really 'our' business, but are you sure it's wise to enlist the services of someone who you claim is not a mechanic, to work on a quite complex engine on your behalf?
I fear it could go wrong for you, we are potentially talking about some serious engine surgery here, and a non-mechanic let loose on it is a fools errand in my opinion.
The issue of running the engine again before any work starts still looms, to try and ascertain what the actual fault is that caused the suspected both HG failures.
There is a risk on any forum of being swept up in some sort of perverse desire to do some serious 'cool' stuff, but is it
really the way forward for you?