the engine of the parts truck threw rods 3 and 4, so I'm sticking with the motor that came in the project truck

 

Gotcha. Maybe you could (if need be) pull the heads off the bad engine and swap them onto the good engine.

 

I thought about it, the parts rig had 260k on it, this one only has 124k so i was worried about wear on the heads of that engine, but I did manage to get them all out, luckily there was just enough to get a vise grip on them, I needed to get the truck running though didn't have time to wait on the plate so I just put it back together, I still ordered it so next boring Saturday I can maybe put it in. I know what im doing now so wont be near as time consuming. I got everything done and fired it up. I have a nipple on the driver side of the intake that sounds like a vac leak, my parts motor has a hose over this nipple but its just hanging there so idk where it goes to, if i cover the hole the engine dies.

Also, do you think i need to bleed the cooling system? I didn't remove anything other then the intake but it obviously had to be drained to do that. Where would be the bleed screws on the heads/intake?

 

You don't bleed it, you burp it through the radiator.

 

with the engine cold, put it so the engine is facing uphill on a slight incline, and run it for a little while.

 

With the radiator cap off.

 

Slight incline? Psh, whatever, man! Jack the front of that bad boy up and rev the engine with the heater on.
That's what I did for the most part.

 

There ya go. I never thought of that!

 

The thing to remember is to put in coolant whenever the level drops in the rad.

 

lol alright, im a diesel tech, gasoline's arn't my specialty, so how about the vac leak?