Well, I bought a beater 94 4Runner

So I saved a 4runner from the scrap yard. It needs head gaskets, otherwise works fine. Well it actually needs lots, but I'm not going to do any bodywork. I plan on beating it up on the dirt roads and the ohv area near my house here in Flagstaff.
I'm fresh off a engine swap in a 92 Isuzu trooper - one of the worst designed car I have ever seen or had the displeasure to work on.

The plan is:
Pull this 3vz, regasket the whole engine. I'll probably replace the heads, maybe rering it, but I will go cheap if I can. I have 1100 bucks in this right now.

 

Nice. 4x4? Looks clean

 

yes, 4x4. 5speed.
My first big question: is it much more work to pull the engine versus just getting to the head gaskets?
I have a crane and engine stand. Recently installed a 3.2 Isuzu (3 times cuz they suck) and a chevy 350. So not my first rodeo, but never pulled a toyota before.
It has a few dings in the body, and they previous owner tried to fix the head gasket with sealant goo. otherwise the interior is kinda shot, but mechanically it seems fine. It came with a gasket set and new head bolts.

 

I don’t know why you’d ever need to pull a Toyota motor to do a headgasket. Maybe for easy workmanship but it should be able to be done in the truck.

 

Welcome. That looks like a decent platform to start with.

 

Good choice saving it. Great ‘old beater truck’. I wrote a song called ‘ol beater trucks’! You can listen to some of it on iTunes, it was recorded by a band called Same Latitude as Rome. It’s on their latest CD from 2019. .99 if you like it, haha.

 

Welcome from FL.