Darkness, I can truly sympathize with you.
I was in the same position about two months ago... except my moneypit was an 88 XJ (Cherokee).
Four years ago I made a bad purchase, eliminated those problems by building a new jeep out of three not so good jeeps and 21K later I had one reliable rockcrawler (check out the pics in my locker). Drove it for a year and a half with a brand new drive line and had no problems. Until the horsepower and torque of my "built" motor french fried my crappy Dana 35 (a common problem). Since I haven't wheeled much since the birth of my youngest daughter (who is one and a half) I called it quits and am now in the process of parting it out. It hurt like hell to rip apart something (cool) that I had built with my own hands but realistically I am much happier with another Suby and the proceeds from my parts will completely pay for my SVX and several repairs.
My advice to you is determine how deep you want to dig this moneypit.
Next if you decide to keep your current SVX then like many others here I would suggest learning to work on it yourself.
If most of your mechanical problems stem from the engine but the rest of the car has been pretty reliable then yeah I would agree with Tom on this one... swap in a new(er) motor.
Just my opinion.
Ira
