Is there a diesel Guru in the house?

NMNA.  BUT....  I brought the Frontier in for its annual Inspection and it needs some suspension work to pass; with 4WD it's hard to notice a little wiggle.  The floor under the bedliner crunches when walking around and it just looks bad underneath.  I'm fixing the suspension stuff but looking around.

It's not often that I need a pickup, I've just always had one.  A few friends have vans which seem to do the same thing, so I found a RHD TD Hiace that I like, but it needs a head gasket or a new head.  Does the old "If you can read, you can cook" logic work here or is there something I don't want to see?

BTW, similar vehicles are $11 - $13,000.

Never known Toyota diesels to do anything but run forever. I can't imagine it's a difficult job but I'd have a machine shop you truat already lined up. Are there any honest machine shops left?

Fairly certain engine location is the issue here. In addition to  the uncommon engine,  you likely need some combination of access to a lift/removing body  from the frame/removing a large part of the interior to access the  motor. Then you get to deal with a motor  that  likely doesn't have a ton of parts support. My guess is that's why it's so cheap.

22R swap?