In an earlier post I mentioned that I'm going to pull the intake and heads off the 289 to port and polish them this winter. What is the best way to remove old head gasket from the block deck, and how "clean" does it need to be? Does the entire surface need to be bare metal, or will a scraper and scotch-brite treatment suffice?

What method do you use for cleaning/prepping, and how do you keep too much crap from getting into the lifter valley and cylinders other than just throwing a rag over the top of them? I thought about using masking tape to the cylinder walls, with some plastic wrap or newspaper, to keep it from getting between the cylinder and bore, is that overkill?

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'86 Bronco, 460, E4OD; '85 Ranger, 350hp 289, T5, 12.9@110.5
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