Means it's out of the truck, I'd probably pull the heads too. It would make valve spring changing a lot easier for sure.

 

that's kind of what I was thinking. there should be no need for that special tool then, right? ...maybe just a different special tool :-)

I was thinking more about this over the weekend, though and the counter-argument for just leaving the heads in place is that if a compression test comes up OK on the engine, there really should be no issues with the valves or sealing surfaces. this engine does have what always sounded like a valve tap to me, so i'm trying to figure that out, but I guess the compression test is first...