Wait, why did you let it sit for 8 months if the whole problem was just finding a head? I get the forum tip worked out but that seems like a lot of downtime for something you could've sorted in a weekend or two with some phone calls to junkyards. Around here you can pull a head off a 4.0 in a Pick Your Part for like $60 and they're everywhere. The part that gets me is you kind of answered your own question at the end there, posting the cracked head was the fix, not some big lesson about buying parts hoping problems go away. Most guys I know with dead projects aren't throwing money at them, they're just flat broke or busy or lost interest, and a forum post doesn't fix any of that. Sounds like you got lucky with a neighbor who knew the right move more than anything.

Did you ever try plugging the dryer into a different outlet first? I had a similar thing with my washing machine last year, kept swapping the lid switch and the timer, probably spent $60 on parts that were fine. What finally worked was running an extension cord to the outlet on the other side of my garage, and sure enough it fired right up. The outlet itself was half dead, not enough juice to kick the motor over. My rule now is two parts max, then I test everything with a known good meter and try a different circuit before I buy anything else. After that I call my buddy Ray who does appliance repair on the side, costs me a case of beer and he finds it in ten minutes.