Cracked 2F Head - This Sucks

[Ming89FJ62]

The disappearing coolant ended up in the crank case so I knew that the head gasket was gone but the magnaflux came back and the heads a gonner as well . When I bought the pig last summer the PO provided tons of docs including an invoice from the local Toyo dealer who, amongst adding the power steering and other stuff, replaced the head gasket. The work was done in 99 and the truck has a total of 4k miles on it since the work was completed - 1100 by me. So WTF, I certainly haven't over heated it - in fact a replaced the radiator back in April cause the core on the original was shot. Any ideas as to what caused the head to take a dump?

 

[fsusteve]

Generally heat will do it and since you had to replace the radiator, I'm guessing that's was the issue.

 

[60wag]

I'll bet the PO overheated it. When they did the head gasket, maybe they missed the crack. Or maybe the head was stressed from the overheat and the crack you have now hadn't become obvious when they did the head gasket. Either way, I doubt anything you've done caused the head to fail. Its a bummer, but look at it as an opportunity to put on a new head with a fresh valve job and a 0.050" shave.

 

[IDave]

My blown head gasket occurred right where the crud built up in the water jacket, preventing coolant from getting near the #6 cylinder.

 

[65swb45]

There is absolutely no way to second guess the longevity of a cylinder head on a landcruiser. I replaced an F135 head on my 65lwb that had never gotten hot, but had 7 cracks with another freshly rebuilt F135 head that mag-ed good, never got hot, and cracked in 3 weeks! All you can do is lick your wounds and move on. Good luck.