Ron, replacing sleeves are often not essential, that's basically what a rebuild kit is... sleeves, matching pistons, rings, etc. which is why you always see them sold with rebuild kits.
You can buy just rings from several AG parts dealers, and clean/lap the head & valves yourself. You can buy just the head gasket, pan gasket, etc. to do as little, or as much as you like. My TO used to belch smoke like a full time bug sprayer. When I pulled it apart to do a ring job, I found the rings had been broken for some time and wallered out the ring grooves in pistons something terrible. My sleeve ID's were still within spec's though. My "ring job" turned into a new sleeve/piston job.... good used pistons are tough to find. You can also buy just one sleeve/piston if you have one really bad piston but the others look okay. The sleeve seals are rubber O-rings that go around the base of the sleeve and seal the sleeve to the bottom bore in the block. The sleeves are wet sleeves and are held in place by the head. Once the head is off... in theory... the sleeves can just be pushed up out of the block. But in practice they get stuck in there with rust & crud, you would think they were pressed-in with a 50 ton press. Before buying a set of rings and a head gasket, I recommend pulling the head and pistons to see what your dealing with, to make sure that will take care of your problem. George
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