I don’t know what the machine shop prices are in Mn, but around here......$550 often doesn’t go very far in reconditioning 40+ year old heads.
But, machine shop labor prices can vary a lot with location.
When SM had their Black Friday sale last year, you could buy a new pair of assembled aluminum LA heads for about what it would cost to go through a typical set of used up 40+ year old stock LA heads here.
I’d wait a bit and see if they have that type of sale again this year before deciding what to do.
Of course, in the mean time...... you could do some price shopping locally to see what the pricing is like where you are.
