Flossy

Hey guys! First of all, I want to apologize in advance for the obnoxious title but I have an urgent need for your expertise. I understand that some people will sigh and move on but any information that that may help will be greatly appreciated. Here is the short of my story...

I am a car guy....strictly BMW but I have mechanical and technical experience. I purchased a 1991 Toyota pickup 3VZE from the orginal owner with 210K miles on it and drove it all last winter. It drove great....5 speed, 4WD. Fast forward to spring....laboring start with white puffs of smoke and yes, a blown head gasket. I decided on a new motor/reman as the work cost was a wash. I didn't have the time to attempt the swap myself so I have a shop doing it for me.

I purchased the motor pretty much complete from Denny's Auto Machine in MD. He was pleasant to talk to and seemed to be on the up. Motor shows up, shop is busy and it sits for about 8 weeks. They know I have other cars so I don't mind. The truck is more of a winter car and yard maintainer. So...they take the old motor out and first thing they notice is that my motor had a mechanical tensioner and the knock sensor was not the same. No biggie in regards to the hydraulic tensioner. The cover can be trimmed to accomodate this. The knock sensor, however, requires some labor to be replaced and the intake manifold needs removal. I called Denny and he send out the correct knock sensor but didn't offer to help me with any labor cost.

So now the big issue. My mechanic goes to put in the distributor and the housing has a burr on the mounting surface and is out of round at the 12 and 6 position (he used a micrometer to very this). The oil filter was also crumpled a bit on the top but we were naive in thinking it was simply being used as a plug to keep debris out of the oil system. We now get to thinking that this motor either was dropped or took a tumble as the these two items are damaged. At this point, I will not bad mouth Denny but I have know my mechanic for 30 years and he is not only a great mechanic but a great person....would never be dishonest in any way or mislead me in any way. SO.........the gist is this - I want to make sure that we are not overlooking anything before removing the distributor housing and replacing it with the old housing. Were there any distributor variations were the distributor would not fit an original housing? Many thanks in advance guys and sorry about my naivety regarding the 3VZE.