My LT needs a good doctor

I have quite a problem with my 1991 VW LT 28, which I just bought in Germany last November. Now, I guess to get a good hypothesis i need to give all the details. One its a diesel. And it had been running fine, except 2 days after I bought it the fuel pipe to the number one cylinder had sprung a hole and was leaking fuel. It took about a month to locate the part, and I clamped the whole, but it still leaked. Anyway, after that was fixed, the van was running sweet, but I did have to top the van up with coolant after every other tank of diesel. So, I knew there was a small leak somewhere. Then... bosh... loads of white smoke starting piping out my exhaust. It stopped, but I knew that water (coolant) was making its way into the engine. So, I bought a new head gasket, thinking that was the most likely problem. My friend/mechanic, and I took off the cylinder head, and dug our way into the gasket. Well, what we found was a head gasket that looked pretty alright... but we could tell that water was definately getting in the first cylinder. AS the head gasket didn't appear to be damaged, we questioned whether it is the head gasket that blew causing all the white smoke??? I don't know. The other hypothesis is that coolant is getting in from the valve...and that it could be from a small crack in the cylinder head. We can't seen anything on the cylinder head. And it looks really straight(never overheated ). My dilemna, is whether I should just bang the old cylinder head on a new gasket, or transfer valves and everything too a new cylinder head.... any ideas are very welcome. Plus... I live in France in the Alps, and its hard to find someone to pressure test the cylinder head for less than the price of a new one.
Alright... Salut, good day.

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robin Tibby