Well, this is going slower than I had planned due to other things coming up. I will start reassembly tomorrow. I got everything cleaned today. The old HG didn't look terrible; no obvious rips, tears, or blow-outs. Of course, it did fail, so I'm not saying it was perfect. The block looked good, thankfully. Sorry, no pictures.

I took the cooling fan clutch apart, and it was definitely low on silicone oil. So, I put some STP oil treatment in there. Believe it or not, the local Toyota parts guy suggested that since he said there was no other silicone oil readily available anywhere in the country. Anyway, I hope I didn't overdo it 'cause I filled it pretty full.

Egged out- shape of gasket out of round; looks kind of like an egg-distorted.

Yep oil filter if coolant got in there. Glad the block is okay.

RC car differential silicone oil from any Hobby Shop.
I used the 10,000. It works well and that fan is going strong after two years. About $6.00 a bottle

Yep, that's exactly what I saw on the back side of cylinder #4. The holes in the gasket for the water jackets weren't exactly lining up with the water jackets in the block.

>>>*Remember that many of the holes in the top of a block are there to ease removal of material in there from the casting process, similar to the lower block plugs, same reason is why they are there.

The gasket is designed and intended to restrict in some areas, this forces flow to more evenly distribute.

If it does not, then a difference in temperature (or thermals if you will) can happen, that difference in temperature then can cause expansion variations more in one area than another, causing a failure....*EB