im thinking about picking up a 93 toyota 4runner for 250, it needs suspension work which is no problem. it also has a blown headgasket, i looked up some pricing on new engines i can get one for aroun 2k...just wondering if it would be more worth it to just put in a new headgasket? or replace the whole engine? and how big of a job would it be?

what engine is it

Buddy of mine had Toyota replace his 22re headgasket for around 1200 bucks. If you're up to doing it yourself, it'll cost you about $50 dollars and some free time over the weekend to get a full gasket set in from engnbldr.com

It's well worth checking your block for warpage and getting your head shaved at a machine shop which'll cost some extra $$ but much less than 2k. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Although I've heard from ppl that if your block is warped it may be easier to leave the head as is and try to either shim it or just replace the HG.

How bad is the blown gasket?

I had a 92 Ford Tbird, really nice car, ran great, handled beautiful, I really liked the car, but it had a bad gasket, always having to fill up the water, couldnt drive far without it overheating.

Some guy told me about sodium silicate, I tried it, the car quit surging on idle, never had to add water, it ran beautiful and passed smog ever since.

If I had only paid $250 for the whole truck, I'd be thinking I had the money for a 3.4L or V8 swap.

Replacing headgasket is not real a hard job, but sometimes the head is cracked then you need to get a remanufactured head around $500. What I would do is to remove the head and take it to a machine shop to find out what condition it is in, and go from there. Some guy mentioned the block may be warpped but this is new to me, never heard of it happening. It should cost you around $100 to get head resurface and valve reseated, not a bad deal. Also doing a compression test before doing anything is not a bad idea because it will tell you a lot about condition of the engine, normally you should get very close readings on all cylinders except the one with blown gasket. I always consider what is the market value of the car in great condition and never go over that trying to fix a J.....

If you do need a head like I did, EB sells some awesome NEW heads. I ordered one complete with valves, springs and all, already assembled, his headgasket rocks! Total for new head with valves and all, HG set and headbolt set was around 470 bucks. All new stuff. I installed it this weekend, and it runs 100 times better than before the head failed.

Do you have a Website for EB. Thanks

EB's Toyota section

I bought all my 3.0 rebuild parts from EB and I could not be happier.