Today I... actually this entire past weekend... wasted about $500 and 18~ish hours fixing my daily driver. That time estimate includes labor, parts runs, and tool fabrication. I'm highly, HIGHLY upset about all of this. That's a lot of time and money to be wasting on a frikken vehicle with over 270K.
Oh and also, that water outlet housing that I was talking about... I ended up snapping a sensor off inside it

That meant I had to break out my mad tap and die skillz

What I REALLY needed was a helicoil. Didn't have any that size, and on a Sunday.... good luck finding anything.
Ha, I used a massive amount of teflon tape and snugged it up. So far so good, but I don't trust it. Then I put everything back together again only to have a fuel injector o-ring go bad. Fuel everywhere. Junkyard trip number 3 for the weekend.
Everything said and done, I took poor Yota for a "spirited" test drive. darn thing runs better now than it ever has. The kicker: The CEL has not turned on since the new timing belt was installed.....
If something catastrophic on this car fails one more time, I'm done with it.