Thanks Guys. All of that was very helpfull. As I get nearer to my goal, I'll repost this with parts specific questions.
I was told at work last night that my vacation request for my AK trip was denied. I have planned for three years to go on this motorcycle trip. I will protest their decision as where I work on swing shift, they only let one person go on vacation at a time, per specialty field. So I worked it out with all of my coworkers to get my vacation this year. It's pretty hard under normal times to do this. My bosses decided to let a senior worker with a different specialty go instead of me. I'm pretty pissed at this as it is not the way they have done things in the past.
What this means, is if I can't go, then I'll have some cash for a engine rebuild this year. It does make me frustrated though.