Head gasket leaking, what to do next?

Here's the deal, replaced the timing belt and water pump because the antifreeze was leaking out around the pump, or so I thought. Put it back together and it was still leaking. Appears to be coming out around the head gasket. So here are my conceivable options:

1) Temporarily stop the leak with Barr's stop leak and sell the truck to the next sucker (don't really want to do this because of all the work and money I have put in to this truck in the past 8 months)

2) Tear down the engine enough to replace the head gasket. I would have the head machined before putting the new gasket on.

3) Because of the age of the truck (1990 model) and because it appears to burn a little oil, I am toying with the idea of tearing the engine down and rebuilding it. Much more cost though for a truck that I may not want to keep much longer.

4) Something I haven't thought of?

So far I have had this truck for 8 months. I bought it to fix up for my son. Not so sure momma gonna let him drive it because it has no airbags. I have replaced the headlights with H4, the muffler, clutch, master cylinder, slave cylinder, all factory speakers and radio, timing belt, water pump, just put on four new tires (less than 10 miles on those), had the bed sealed with a spray in bed liner and I have a new chrome grill and bumper to go on it after the body work is done. So I have dropped the money into it just to make it road worthy and now its starts this head gasket crap. So what would you do?

Head gaskets are relatively easy to replace on these engines, if you leave the intake bolted to the head.
I'd change that, and drive it until you decide whether or not you'll be keeping it.

the first water pump i did leaked out of the gasket because.. well i guess beginers flaw or my stupidity. i didnt scrape enough of the old gasket off. but if this isnt the case 4 u then id see if the oil and or coolant is contaminated with one another and if so id just replace the headgasket. if it wasnt over heated then nothing should be cracked or warped. and a headgasket isnt too awfully hard on these trucks. but if ur leaking and its not getting in the oil then it might not be a head gasket. id giver one more shot since u done put that much money in it. theyre good trucks once u get most of the flaws worked out. id double check to make sure its not coming out of the water pump. unless u already did. and tell momma the truck aint a bad starter for the kid. if u buy your kid a jet, they will fly! and these trucks arnt, by any means, a jet. lol good luck man.

I'd go with what SinCity said. As for the whole engine.... well, how much oil does it burn? What's the compression? What is the mileage on the truck? Engine? If it's really weak or burning a ton, then I'd consider rebuilding it.

As for selling it, no one is going to pay you for what you've put into it... especially if they're going to have to rebuild the engine. That doesn't make sinking another grand into to it taste any better but at least you will have a nice looking truck that has a fresh reliable motor. Sure, there will always be a little something else, brakes, AC, ect... but that's going to be true on any older truck.

Not much you can do about not having an airbag. Maybe make him wear a helmet and put in a 5 point racing seat belt.

Stop leaking and sell to the next sucker??? I believe in kharma... so you never know when you are going to be the sucker on the next truck you buy.

Had the head gasket replaced professionally. Job was a little bigger than I was willing to tackle given the time I had available over the past few months. Stopped the coolant leak, but now it smokes worse. All of the seals were replaced and the valves cleaned when the head was off. I suspect there is a small crack in the head causing the oil to leak into the engine and burn off until the engine gets warm enough to close the crack. Make sense to anyone else? Anyone got a gently used head for sale?

I think it's just time, your rings are likely the issue for the smoking, they just stop expanding as they age with time and temperature. I think that running hot/previous head gasket issue just accelerated the issue a little.

I believe on my own B2200 that my smoking issue (before I rebuilt the engine) was accelerated after I had to make an emergency trip to over 200 miles away to save Mrs. Cusser while I was waiting for my 2-row radiator to arrive, and I ran at the top of the gauge with heater on full blast on a 112F afternoon up into the mountains.

See my thread in the signature section below on my Oct. 2011 engine rebuild.

Yes, I made a mistake, should've taken the 1998 Frontier regular cab on that rescue that my daughter was driving, could've swapped. But to bring back 2 dogs and Mrs. Cusser in that had I not been able to fix her Suburban - that would've been a little challenging (crowded, manual shift).

Update No. 2 - The mechanic that did the head gasket replacement actually honored his workmanship and redid the valve job and put another head gasket on to make sure he had done his part correctly. This time he said that two of the valves seems to lose pressure when he tried to hold the valve up, indicating some fairly significant wear and tear on the cylinder head. Still smokes like a champ until it gets warmed up. All this indicates to me that the head needs to be replaced and not necessarily the entire engine needs to be rebuilt. Truck only has 81k mileage, but is 23 years old. Trying to avoid a major tear down due to money and time restraints. Thought about buying a second engine to tear down at my leisure to rebuild and then swap them out. Also found rebuilt heads out of Texas for $300. Comments?

Update #3 - Had the head replaced with a refurbished one. Still smokes like a freight train until it gets warm. I have to go back to Cusser's comment from months ago and look into a rebuild. If I do this myself, I will post the pics.

Progress.... hang in there you'll get it...

Smoking like a freight train means the rings are stuck. You could try seafoam as an intermediate step... otherwise a re-ring can be done fairly inexpensively if you do the work.

Update #4: Getting geared up to pull the engine and rebuild it. Have been wanting to do this since I bought the truck, and with the extreme smoke billowing out of it, its time. Any suggestions on a complete engine kit? I do plan to put back a Weber Carb, and may even add a Pacesetter Header. Will have the block machined, but probably won't do the Head since it is practically brand new (refurb). I have access to AllData, so I think I can follow the instructions from there. Any other pointers given I have never attempted anything like this by myself?