last time I had sought a quick way forward by getting a head from a scrapyard. However on reflection it looks worse than mine, and might need a lot of effort to put it right. So after some searching I found a guy in Bradford who recons engines and heads, and who seemed reasonably priced. So I dropped both heads off with him. He is to fit 4 new valves and guides if required to the first head, and I took along the second one for him to put into his degreasing/cleaning tank to see what it looks with all the carbon off. I pick them up tomorrow so hopefully will be all set to refit when I get some time.
I haven't yet checked all the valves for leaks, I will follow the advice given by Matchless re using a torch to see if they all seat properly, then its clean up the block and refit time.
I know its taking me a while, but I have another 3 cars to look after !. My daughter's husband's Megane has a knackered water pump, which is a right pain to replace, so it might be going to the scrapyard. We just got another car for my wife, an 06 Corsa Design with 25K on the clock, for £2K, except .... I'l tell all some time !. So I am driving my Wife's ex corsa, 03 with the intention of fixing a few faults and giving it to my daughter. All just small niggly things but they take a while. Also the heater doesn't work. Well it works but the heat output is very low. I ordered a new heater matrix from those quality sellers from Ebay, but the pipe holes were at different angles ( supposed to be perpendicular

) so I couldn't get it back into its air chamber. So take it out, put the old one back in , refill with antifreeze and shiver on the way to work, again
Plus work are giving me lots of extra things to do, I have to time division multiplex everything, which means things seem to move very slowly. Never mind with a bit of luck I'll get a head refitted this weekend and enjoy some quality driving.

Thanks again Mark for the offer,
Ken