Hi Paul -- Thanks for the detailed description!  Your timing is impeccable,
as I'll be doing a solo 1.6NA to 1.6TD swap in the next month or so, and
have been thinking through the process... I'd come to similar conclusions, so
I'm glad they work ;)

I had planned on making a dolly to roll the engine around, do you think
there's hope of getting the van high enough, say three more inches than
right on the floor?

Right now Harbor Freight has a 1000lb chain hoist on sale for $39, so
that's what I'm going to use... come-alongs scare me.

My plan for pulling the engine is to put a milk crate on either
side of the engine compartment, lay a 4x4 across them, hang the
chain hoist off the 4x4, and lower the engine to the dolly.  I keep
a pile of milk crates around to stand on when I'm painting in the
house, and I figure that since they can comfortably hold me up,
even if I stand right in the middle, then they can easily hold up
a 300 lb or so engine when run across the (stronger) edges of the
milk crate.  I weigh about 145.

I might add that my garage is not in good enough shape to be used
for hoisting without some serious bracing (which I plan to do).  Since
I have only one engine stand and it currently has the TD on it,
I need some kind of hoisting arrangement for moving the TD off the
engine stand once it's assembled with the NA parts (it's from a
Quantum), and for picking up the NA engine to pull of the oil
pan, etc.  The garage hoist is a critical addition to the under-equipped
do-it-yerselfer  ;)

        Gary