I recommend finding a general automotive or machine shop in your local area that has a reputation for quality work. Then they will rebuild your core, fixing the parts that you need, and you will know them if there is a problem. Otherwise, with a national chain, who's to say you don't get a crank ground down to the max and cylinders bored out to the max, unusable as a core when you need to replace it again?
I lived near Greenfield, MA several decades ago when we needed a Chevy 235 rebuilt. There was this place, Cowan's, with a head machinist named Earl (of course) who had an excellent reputation, for being conscientious and demanding that his employees do everything right. We pulled that engine and brought it down to Earl, fuel pump, distributor, and everything in place. We didn't even clean it. They gave us some funny looks when they unloaded the truck, but two weeks later we picked up the same engine, painted blue, ready to drop back in the Suburban. Support your local people.
in the quadratec "essentials" magazine they have long blocks with 3yr 60k mile warranty for around 1600 + core... that seems to be a pretty good deal in my opinion.
I paid a local shop (Engine Experts) about $4,000 to put a reman 4.0 in my XJ. That included a water pump, belts, hoses, radiator wires, dist cap and rotor, filters...
The engine was built by Groom out of Tennessee and I've got a 1 year unlimited mileage warranty including labor, after that year the engine is warranted for as long as I own the car but I have to pay the labor to replace it.
Considering the original engine had 300,000k on it, and I've no plans on changing vehicles I expect to be collecting another engine from them in about 250,000 miles!
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