gryphonrunner

Where to begin? I guess the beginning is the best place.
Around the first of the year, RoadKill (freaking love that show) posted a story on Facebook about the best trucks that can be bought for summer job money, one of which was an old Tacoma. Summer money doesn't exactly apply as I'm a 36 year-old married father of two with a steady, year-round job, but it got me thinking. I've always loved the old Toyota trucks and 4Runners, probably starting from when I was a wee lad watching that iconic scene in Back to the Future.
So I started doing research, and settled on a second-generation 4Runner as the one for me. It has that old-school styling but is new enough to have or take a modern-ish power plant. It's also smaller than the third-generation and later 4Runners. Perhaps most importantly, I could buy one cheap and work on it in my free time until it could become my daily driver. You'd be surprised what you can buy for $800 if you look hard enough.
In retrospect, I probably overpaid. The guy I bought it from lived an hour away. On the other side of a mountain pass. In January. In northern Utah. The engine had... issues (more on that later) which prevented me from going over said pass and I made it not even half way up before the engine blew up. So add another $200 tow to the price of the car. Fortunately, I got it started once it had cooled off and was able to limp it up the driveway and onto the RV pad where I could work on it. The thing is I knew the engine would need some work, but I was expecting a blown gasket that I could fix and drive until I was ready to drop in a 3.4L. That wasn't to be.
I looked at doing a JDM import 3.4, but from what I was reading it was a mixed bag. You might get an easy one or you might get one that just wouldn't work without a lot of parts from your "original" 3.4 (which of course I didn't have). This left me with junkyards and people parting out their wrecked Tacomas and 4Runners. A 3.4L doesn't last long in a junkyard because they are highly sought after around here, so I had to wait for someone to wreck their car. I finally found one in March for $900 including ECM, and borrowed a buddy's trailer and Jeep to haul it home. Add a Harbor Freight engine stand and I was in business, at least while the snow wasn't too deep.
It took me about two weeks to completely tear down the engine to a bare block because 1) I was working only when the sun was shining and 2) most days were unseasonably cold and windy. Finally I was ready to send the engine off to get hot tanked, honed, and decked, and start the rebuild. This is where the pictures begin.

gryphonrunner

And so it begins. There's no need to paint your block, but I figure if I went to the trouble of cleaning 22 years of grease and grime off a block, why not slap a coat of rattle can on there?
Cleaned up the oil cooler with a $30 soda blaster from Harbor Freight (notice the ubiquitous soda on the ground behind the block). If I had to do it over again, I would have bought a soda blaster on day 1 because it is so much faster and easier than using any of the solvents I tried.
Moving parts going in. The crank was pristine and didn't need any love.
Bearing cap and pistons are in and torqued to spec.
Notice I used the original baffle plate and not the 3.0 plate. I splurged for the T100 pickup tube, so I didn't have to hack up the old baffle play and pickup tube. Turns out it was a good decision. The oil pressure switch is just a placeholder until I can get the pressure sensor off the 3.0.