Cummins ISX rebuild?

So my first truck (2001 international 9200). Truck has 820k miles. I have replaced in the last year; trans, clutch, rear main, engine mounts, all acc drive pull us/bearings/tensioner, alt, air compressor a/c system, 5th wheel, main drive shaft rebuild with carrier bearings and u joints. I bought the truck as a starter unit even though it's kind of an ugly truck but have grown to trust it on the road. I have done a lot of other little stuff to try and keep it up to snuff. It is an eagle with full gauges and a nice clean interior. Overall specked close to what I would want if I bought new today. 6.48mpg hand calculated for last 125k miles.

I pulled the valve cover 2 weeks ago to do a valve adjustment and found the #5 intake lobe flat and the follower pitted but rolling nicely. The engine coolant has always had tinny bubbles in it. If I push it hart it will puke a little out. I have a extra catch can for the overflow and that fills it right back to where it was. When it is cold out you can see the blow by coming out of the breather tube perty heavy. If I have to idle over night it is only like a 1 inch puddle in the morning. I get a little on my 1/4 fenders after a hard pull. I use about a gallon of oil every 3 to 4K miles.

I need to decide what to do;

1. Pull cam and follower and replace with new (maybe cam bearings) myself and drive on?

2.rebuild or replace engine. Cummins said don't bring it to us unless you got $30k in the bank. Local shop said they could rebuild with cummins parts for no more than $22k. Cummins was 1 year warranty and local shop said same thing trough them only though. I am half tempted to try it myself if I can find someone to help me if I get stuck. I have done almost all the work myself except the driveshaft and have a shop to do work in.

3. Replace with a cat c12. I would be doing this myself if I could find a donner truck. It would get a cat rebuild before going into truck.

4. Scrap it and buy a diffrent truck.

I'm all ears for suggestions. I'm not a big fan of the ISX so far but even less of a fan of anything with DPF. After looking through truck paper I get sick to my stomach looking at used and new prices. I have about $15k in cask and would halve to finance the rest for any of the above options. I have enough other resources for a couple of weeks of down time.

I ran the overhead slapped the cover back on and hit the road. I need to make a choice perty soon.

Thanks, I'm in central Illinois if anyone has options I didn't think of.

 

By the way I don't regret buying this truck or spending any of the money I have spent on it. It doesent owe me anything at this point. It has earned every dime.

 

No oil samples. I spent about $16k on it so far. Frame has some rust but cleaned it up last year and painted it. Doesent scare me but won't last forever. I bought it local. It ran amonia tanker all its life till I bought it. I think it has 27k hours.

Thank you for your thoughts.

I do like not being buried in payments. I like to have fredoom of taking a few weeks off every now and then.

 

Thanks I'll give them a call on Mondaythat's what they said if it neees everything. $15k or less would be much easier to swallow.

 

Cummins parts can be $10k easy. $4500 for rebuild kit, $2500 for rebuilt head, $1400 for camshaft and $300 for follower. It would be hard to have it done for $10k I would think with quality parts.

 

I would be all for that too. Looks like all engines used the same radiators an CAC and clutch. Not sure about engine mounting locations or how hard or expensive the wiring harness would be to get for n-14 or c12?