Thanks for the feedback everyone. This is extremely helpful as this is my first land cruiser and it's going to be a learning experience. Thanks for the recommendation on Gumby, I will contact him.
Let me tell the complete story to try to answer all of your questions:
I live in Chicago, but spent several months working in Santa Barbara CA recently, and was looking for an FJ 62 while I was out there as I have been interested in them for a while. I found one in San Diego. Did not have it checked by a mechanic before purchasing, which was a mistake. Drove the car 3 hours north to Santa Barbara and it had no issues. I took it to a mechanic to get it checked out and tuned up before I was going to attempt to drive it to Chicago. The mechanic in Santa Barbara told me I had a blown head gasket, gases leaking into coolant, etc. He said it could be fixed for roughly $2k, but that I should think about putting a rebuilt engine in. He said in light of my upcoming trip to Chicago, he could attempt to do a temporary fix for the leak that might hold me over til Chicago, where I would need to repair it. He used sodium silicate and told me that it appeared to be working.
I started the drive to Chicago from Santa Barbara, which is about 2000 miles. I made it about 250 miles (just east of Indio CA) when it started overheating ( I was going up a pretty big hill in hot weather). I called the mechanic and he said it may be that the thermostat is stuck. Anyways I had to have it towed to a mechanic in Indio CA, who told me that he wouldn't attempt to fix the thermostat since the sodium silicate treatment was done, and that he believes the problem was still the head gasket. I took it to another mechanic in town who said the same thing. I ended up renting a Uhaul truck and trailer and hauling the truck to Phoenix, where I left it at a friends place and flew home to Chicago (had to get home for work).
I am now trying to figure out my next steps. My plan is likely to have the car shipped to Chicago (~$800 is what I've seen), instead of trying to manage repair in Phoenix while I'm in Chicago. Before I do that however, I need to have a plan for fixing the head gasket / replacing the engine.
It seems based on feedback below that fixing the head gasket would be a better solution than replacing the engine. However as I see it, if you replace the engine, you can get a rebuilt engine for $1800 with a warranty for 3 years parts and labor. This quote is from Southwest Engines - not sure if this is a reliable source, and also not sure how much installation would cost.
So that's the situation, all feedback appreciated...
