I had decided that one way or another I was going to get the engine block to the cleaner's before New Year's. So, I stayed up until 1:00 last night and got the pistons, rods, and crank removed. The bare block is in the pickup and gets dropped off around noon!

Hopefully it'll only take a week or so to get it hot-tanked. Then I can mic it and see if I need to bore it or not. In a way I hope it's not very worn (everything's checked out great so far in disassembly), so that I don't have to pop for the cost of boring, and new pistons, etc. On the other hand, if it's too tapered it's the perfect opening of "while you're at it", to get new pistons *and* the new crank and just go all the way to 3.1 L. I guess I'llsee which way it goes soon enough.
Dave