My 81 Chevy C10

[Dablis]

Hello all I'm Adam I'm New to the forums and ever since I was a small Boy I have always wanted a truck but something always seem to get it the way well in April this truck just basicly fell into my lap.

My 1981 Chevy Custom Deluxe the guy was desperate for money so I bought her for $100
she has a 4.1L Inline 6 250 2BBL

The last owner said that while trying to jump the Truck they hooked up the Jumper cables up backwards and now the truck would not start.. well after some help from my friend we found a Blown Fuible link thet went from the starter to the ignition once we bypassed the fusible link temporarily the truck started right up like it had not even skipped a beat and she had been sitting up for over 6 months. well after that we thought we would give her an oil change a fresh set of plugs and actually fix the fusible link well starting with the oil change we hit our first snag low and behold she had a blown head gasket so now were on a new mission monday we went thru and took off her head and found the gasket was bad

And this is where were currently at next step I have is to clean the Block and head and order the new Gasket set now my plan is to fix the Inline 6 to get her own the road then when money would allow I plan to buy an engine stand then a 350 and take my time and rebuild it outside of the truck until I can get that done and put it in the truck. anyone have any suggestions on the best way to clean the head and block i don't want to use anything that would damage it in any way and I know very little about engines this is a learning as I go kinda thing I do have some help from my friend who knows alot more about engines and he wants me to use a wire brush to clean them but this just seems kinda rough I though but just would like some second oppinions from the board! Thanks everyone for any tips you may have and i'm sorry if I come off sounding dumb on some things.

Dablis