Advice on buying junkyard engines?
If you can't hear it run, yake it part and look it over and have machine shop check it out, for my $ it is a ore. We know what a core may or may not require.
Years ago when I lived in Mo.and I knew so many Mopar guys ( guys that had been in the hobby for years and wasn't trying to make a fast buck to buy more parts so that the young wife wouldn't scream about), I could always find a guy that had freshened an engine, ran it awhile and pulled it out of what ever and it sat in the corner of his garage.