Bout to tackle the head gasket on my 97 12 valve
 

Anything I should know before I start? Tips, tricks, suggestions?

Tip: Make friends with the guy at the parts counter, you'll forget a lot of little things, like loc-tite, torque specs, coolant, etc.

Trick: Buy a case of beer and trick your buddies into lifting the head off the block. Or trick one of them into letting you use their cherry picker.

Suggestion: Drink said beer while you're tearing it apart :c:, not putting it back together. :argh:

:pca1: :c:

:humm: (if you drink too much taking it apart)

use a cherry picker if you have one the heads a heavy son of a B#@%h ive always climbed in under the hood and lifted it to the radiator support then climbed out to set it on the bumper then my bench it sucks and be careful goin back in not to damage the gasket some people do several retorque may get some opinions on that good luck

So you guys have helped me make a decision. I found a shop that will do the job for 600.00 bucks. That's with me supplying the gasket kit which is another 157.00 bucks. SO for 757.00 bucks someone else will have this headache. Sounds good to me.
I'm not real sure the head gasket is the problem, could be the oil cooler. I'm basing my theory on the fact that there is oil in the coolant. On the other hand, there's no coolant in the oil, the truck is not over heating, there's no fluid or steam with the exhaust and it runs fine.

could be either one most he time oil goes in the coolant because oil pressure is higher than coolant pressure Id have your cooler pressure tested there farly cheap from cummins not dodge thats not a bad price on the hg job but I could beat it good luck

Just have somebody pressure test the oil cooler, if it bleeds down there's a leak in the oil cooler, if it holds, then the HG is bad. A Cummins dealer should charge you like $50.