Head gasket in a can for the win!!
I ended up spending the $3400 to have it extracted from the mountain and towed home. I'm glad I did because, even though the carbon fiber reinforced $50 can of liquid head gasket actually worked like a champ-the changed oil is now clean-there were a number of other issues ranging from a disintegrating air compressor oil pressure line to destroyed belts and rusted pulleys to a barely moving frozen clutch pedal (the clutch and idler linkage is fine, it's just frozen under the dash) it would have been a far more expensive, unplanned emergency tow if we'd tried to drive it.
Now it's in the yard and it doesn't really need to move expect maybe back and forth when I have some more gravel brought in for the driveway, but at least the engine oil isn't full of coolant anymore. I sanded and painted all the pulleys, then installed new belts so at least now it can be driven around the block and not throw any of them.
Now, over the next year or so til it needs to move on the road again, I can work on the electrics-none of the vehicle's turn signals, hazard lights, or other electrics other than starting and running, are working at all. Not even any brake lights. Well, two of the four clearance lights work. The air powered wipers are also stuck-the actuation levers are completely frozen so they can't be activated. Needs radiator hoses and other rubber too.
Regarding the Cadillac V8 and needing to drill a pilot bearing.. on my C60, the original flywheel had a pilot bearing already in it, and the distance from the back edge of the block to the crankshaft flywheel mounting surface was the same. There was even a steel adapter plate already present between Chevy engine and large round truck bellhousing. I just had to drill a couple of different holes in it! The big locating dowels also lined up, IIRC the distance between them and location relative to the crank centerline is pretty much a standard across GM engines from 1948 onward. This would be for another thread, but for the curious:
https://cadillacperformance.com these guys sell all manner of Cadi hop up parts including adapter plates, manual transmission flywheels (for 11 or 12" clutch, not the bigger one on a 2 ton gasser) and even a press in pilot bearing adapter for the back of the Cadi crank so you needn't have it machined.
