Toyota 4Runner Engine Swap

In 2005 I purchased a 1995 Toyota 4Runner 2WD trunk.  I drove it almost 40k miles before the engine overheated (common problem with the engine this year/model truck came with).  My original plans were that I would just pull the original engine and rebuild it back to better than new condition.  However, I work with someone who has a newer model 4Runner which comes with a much more reliable engine and he started putting a bug in my ear about how I should consider upgrading the engine to the bigger,better, and newer 3.4 model.  He pointed me to a website where others had already performed the same swap.  In just a short time, I was on the upgrade swap path.

4Runner in the shop with engine removed

Here is a what the engine compartment looked like right after the original engine was out.  As you can see, there is a lot of things still left in there.  This picture was taken a while after the engine was removed, the torque converter had enough time to form a layer of rust on it.

Picture of engine compartment after the 3.0 was removed

Here is what will go back into that empty engine compartment:

1999 3.4 Liter Toyota Engine

The sad part about all this is that I started the project in January of 2008.  Now, almost two years later, I am on a mission to start back on this project and get it done!