What do you think?

[89camaroperson]

I have found a guy in my area with a 98 firebird with the 3.8 v6 in it with 140000 miles on it. The automatic transmission has been rebuilt, the car has full power options, leather, t-tops, factory chrome wheels, and pretty much any other option available. All of this for a low price of $3500 maybe a little less. HOWEVER.....As best that he can tell and the dealer mechanics that worked on it, it has a blown head gasket. The guy has traced the low compression and overheating to the gaskets. So i'm thinking to myself...."self....hmmmmmm"...Whether that is good, bad, healthy or otherwise i don't know. It seems like this might be a fantastic deal and ill just pull the heads off myself and take them to a shop for rebuild, have them planed and everything....maybe even a port and polish for an extra kick out of this old motor. But im wanting some more opinions. Is it a pain to pull the heads off this motor? Are they expensive to have work done on them? Am I crazy? Things like this. My 89 camaro, despite being in wonderful shape minus the paint, is aging and will need to undergo and transmission rebuild and probably an engine(305 TBI also with 140000) rebuild as the motor runs strong but acts funny on occasion and worries me. Its just an old car and other things on the car are starting to fall apart, all minor but they certainly add up. Im going into college and will be putting a lot of miles on whatever I drive and cant realy deal with or afford a motor swap with a high powered and low gas economy motor. Would you say that a 3.8 with a complete head rebuild would last another 50 or 60 thousand miles? Would you say that I should get it....or keep what I have. Im posting this in both the camaro and firebird forums just because I dont know which will give me the better answer. Thanks for any and all help.