What happens when you overheat your car

Car Part (www.car-part.com) is a website that searches junkyards. Looks like there are several good options in Tennessee for the 2.7, running $2500 to $2700 for "A" grade engines with 60k miles or so.

 

damn. $12k? are you at the toyota dealership service department?

 

Its not necessarily junk. Repair the fitting and see how it runs. I'm not saying there's no damage. But if it starts/runs, drive it till wont run any more. Save your $12000. Worst case, head gasket blows sometime down the road. Which is not in itself catastrophic either.
Put in new oil and antifreeze. Turn it over. If it starts, great, nothing is warped enough to interfere. Then if it doesn't blow white or blue smoke out the tail pipe, you're golden. White means water is getting into cylinders, blue'ish means oil is.

 

I would stay away from Jasper, I've heard a lot of bad things on them in recent years. I think in this case (if the truck in question were mine) I would go with a good Junkyard 2.7 over a rebuilt/remanufactured engine. In general these engines don’t give much trouble for hundreds of thousands of miles and I think a factory built 2.7 will have better quality and longevity than a rebuilt engine. I also suspect that a used engine will be significantly cheaper than a reman. If you go with a used engine, I would pull a valve cover (or look down the oil fill tube, not sure what you can see on a 2.7 from there) before you install it and inspect. If all looks good and it looks like it has been taken care of then I’d say you’ll be just fine. Most places offer at least a 30 day guarantee on a used engine.

I personally know a guy that is on his third Jasper engine, so I’ll just leave it at that.