Blew a head gasket and overheated the motor

Well folks,
I am new to this forum and have some sad news.

My trusty old tacoma bit the dust a couple days ago. I went to a friends house, truck ran fine. Later that night when I went to leave, the truck started a little rough, thinking it was just cold I waited on it to warm up. Idle smoothed out for the most part so I proceeded to head home. 2 miles down the road I realized the heater was not blowing hot air. Looked at the water/engine temp gauge, the needle was fast approaching the red. I pulled over immediately and shut the truck off. Damage was already done though. The truck spits and sputters, blows white smoke EVERYWHERE. This tragic event makes me sick because this really was my most dependable truck. It had over 260,000 miles on it, never gave a problem before this.

So I am posting on this forum to get some advice from the tacoma savvy folks. I want to drop a used motor in this truck. Can somebody tell me the makes and models of the tacomas that the engines will smoothly just drop into mine?
It is a 2002 Pre-runner 2wd, auto. I am looking for any advice!!!!
Thanks in advance!

Ryann

 

01-04 Prerunners and 4x4s will be plug and play. A five lug 4cyl will not work.
Engine designation is 3RZ-FE
Sounds to me you just blew the head gasket. That is fixable. I would probably examine this as an option b4 going the engine swap route. With a new head gasket and a valve job that engine probably has another 200K in it.

 

Might want to just stick with your primary thread about this. No need for a second thread on same subject.