Toyota Repair: Rebuilding a 22RE, blown head gasket, chocolate milk

Question
Ted,

My 93 22RE starting mixing oil/water some time back, it got really bad, and I pulled the motor, and as best as I can tell had a blown head gasket. I took the head to a local machine shop, and they replaced my head and CAM as they had indicated certain valves werent opening correctly, and had a bad cam line.

My question is; What is the best way to clean the bottom half of this block? I really dont want to spend the $$$ to rebuild the bottom half, and the cylinder walls look good, no scoring, and the pistons look good except for some burnt black residue which can be wiped off. The motor never really burned oil before, so I think the bottom half is still in good shape.

Basically, I just want to degrease, the exterior of the block and repaint it, since its all apart. And also I intend to pull the oil pan and wipe the "chocolate milk" out.

The timing chain obviously needed to be replaced sometime back,as it broke the chain dampers, and started eating into the timing cover, and chain tensioner. (Suprised I didnt hear this noise)

I hope to simply put on a new timing kit, the new head, and leave the bottom half alone aside from a thorough cleaning, but I dont want to just start spraying degreaser all over this thing.

Any suggestions?


Answer
Make sure that the timing cover is replaced because if not it will leak oi into the coolant if the chain wore through, it's a good idea to remove the oil pan and clean everything out,any commercial engine degreaser will be ok to use, follow the directions.