I put the plans for the 6g72TT on hold to see if I can get this guy to run again for cheap. I have plenty of body damage from playing in the snow...with trees and would really like to do the swap in a Montero that still looks good. It appears that buying a JDM motor with the wiring harness and ECU will make the swap cleaner and easier :-).

Pulled the Valve cover and found a rocker for one of the intake valves sitting in the head. I was able to put it back on and it stayed on during another compression test. No change.

I then pulled the head (the water pipe on back of the head really pissed me off!).

My guess was correct, the original butterfly valve from Cyl 1 some how got into Cyl 3 and it bounced around in there for 5K miles. Thousands of little nicks on the piston and head. Both exhaust valves were bent ever so slightly. Thus they wouldn't seat.

I consider spring to be the prime 4x4 time in Colorado and really just want to get the beast up and running quickly.

So I sourced a used passenger cyl head for $150. Assuming the used head checks out I am tossing it back together and doing a quick compression check.