i didnt take part in the original build the previous owner did and ended up selling the truck in the shop for $600 and the bill, that's when my father and i picked it up for our company and i fell in love and bought his share off. i looked for the receipt from the shop to see if heads were checked along with block (magnafluxed). is there anything i should check before i go into reassembly. as of today i have check the cylinders, pistons, heads, oil cooler and the block behind the water pump for cracks and corrosion.

 

You may want to put a straight edge across the heads and block every witch way you can think of and see if you have any high or low spots and if you see anything that you may have doubts about then bring them to be checked

 

A scotchbrite pad is never going to hurt the deck surfaces... I didnt say use a grinding disk... Whatever...

 

Like has been said previously, clean everything up on the mating surfaces of the heads and block and then use a straightedge to check it in every direction possible. It should be perfectly flat. And irregularities, even as small as a couple thousandths of an inch need to be smoothed out before re-assembly. If you're not comfortable checking this yourself, you might call around and see what it would cost you to have a machine shop check everything out for you. The last thing you want to do is to have to go through all this again pretty soon.

I know you said that this was purchased part way through a repair, but are you sure that the shop did everything they are telling you they did? These engines just don't tend to blow head gaskets, especially at stock power levels.