The Hilux has some merit (plenty of LSDs, right stud pattern, 3.7 gears available, leaf spring mounts easy) but not sure on the disc brake setups.
I bought an N42 L28 a year and a half ago and put it in storage because I didn't have a spot to do much work on it at the time. When it came to get pulled out of storage at my mate's factory, it was pretty clear that the storage hadn't been very good and it was half full of water with plenty of damage.
Cleaned the cylinder head up, excessive corrosion on some of the coolant transfer ports, particularly the big one at the back.
To redemy the corroded big open transfer port/weak point in the head, I cleaned up the ratshit and made up this piece of ally that was an interference fit in the port, for welding by the head guy after the head was cleaned.
This obviously restricts that port to be quite a small orifice, changing the flow domination in the block and upping the pressure in the block by a small margin.
Exhaust valves were fine but some of the Inlets had corrosion on the margins so I replaced those 6. Along with the welding repairs, a light skim and general reco was done at M.R.C. Cylinder Heads.
Then the block was then bored and diamond-plateau honed to suit the new .040" hypereutectic pistons which I had fitted to the standard rods. Big end bearings were replaced, but the crank was mint so that remained untouched and I am re-using the main bearings too.
Popped the welsch plugs out and gave it a good clean before starting assembly.
Put the valvetrain gear back on and put the head on the block. Before I had the head reco'd I also drilled and tapped 5 holes above the exhaust ports to help with coolant flow. With my high capacity water pump, I expect to be able to run more bypass flow and this system will allow better thermal stability/consistency, and more detonation resistance under load.
Installed the head on the block, torqued it up and put a dial gauge & degree wheel on the cam to measure it up, seems very mild - 168deg@.050" and 7mm lift.
And that's where I'm up to so far.