Getting Bessie running again (sitting for 6 years)

If he is really your brother and a Mechanic, maybe you should take his advice.

 

As a mechanic for 30 years, this is a hard question to answer...
If you & your brother truly aren't mechanically inclined, takes alot of knowledge to correctly do head gaskets or even just swap out an engine correctly & not have to do it twice...
Especially if youre older, this is a young mans sport....
That being said, you dont have any history on this truck what so ever as you've owned it for 4k miles...
Theres guys on here, "just broken-in, its still brand new".......
Well, what if the previous own was a clueless POS & changed the oil maybe 3 times in that time frame....

You spend a ton of time & money on a head gasket job, & the bottom end is compromised....
Or you do a head gasket job & you do it wrong...

Sounds like youre leaning on your brothers knowledge but this type of job is over his head...
Theres no way to improperly retorque if you torque it correctly....
There needs to be a machine shop involved to check heads for cracks, resurface the head, do a valve job at that mileage...
Need to do both sides....

I vote take it somewhere, to a legit shop & not a buddy of a buddy that own a shade tree......

 

Yes, that's the question. "My brother said he'd done this sort of thing before and is convinced it won't work, but the Internet told me otherwise, so what does he know?" isn't going to sound too good if he turns out to be right.

 

I learned many decades ago the more you learn the less you need to count on others - who generally can't be counted on.

Read
study
take notes
take photos
ask questions
follow procedures and specifications to the letter
keep things clean
stop immediately if something doesn't seem right - start back at "Read"
don't rush
do good work
double check your work.

Many before you did these jobs working from books without the advantages of TW and YT for assistance, you can do this.