Freeze plug question

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

R

rowdyrabbit

Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Threads
19
Messages
117
Location
AR
I have found a 99 100 for sale locally. I haven't seen the vehicle in person, but will try to in the next day or two. Body looks straight. Front right quarter panel has been replaced, but not painted. It has ~245,000 miles. Owner says it popped a freeze plug. How hard is this to fix? Dealer says only an hour or so of labor, not difficult at all. I didn't ask the owner if it overheated, but never know if I can trust them to not. What would be the common signs of overheating? Anything else to check knowing the freeze plug has popped?

I've been looking mostly at 80 series vehicles lately, but came across this one for about the same money. It will split time between my 06 chevrolet 2500 as my daily driver. That truck is knocking on the door of 300,000 and has left me sitting still a couple of times lately. They are asking $2700 for the 100. Does this sound like a good deal needing those repairs, or would I be better served continuing to look at the 80 trucks instead. Part of me says 245 is high miles, but part of me says not to worry. Without fixing the freeze plugs it will be awful difficult to test drive it.

I guess my main question is, would any of this scare you? Or is it a good way to get a vehicle cheap?

Thanks
 
I went by and looked at it today. Owner said he replaced the top freeze plugs, but there is still one more on the bottom. He said the transmission has to be dropped to get to it. I haven't called toyota to see if this is correct. It has 243,000 miles. Interior is dirty and the front leather is shot.

Has anyone had any dealings with freeze plugs on these engines? If so, what caused yours to let loose and what was involved in fixing it?
 
Carful, it may have had water (without antifreeze) freeze in coolant system. Water will expand with a great deal of pressure when frozen. Put a glass jar in your freezer full of water to the top w/lid on tight. Offer $1k if no rust.
 
I figure that's what happened. If it's not terribly difficult to fix it may be worth making an offer on. If the transmission has to be dropped to get to it, then I'm not interested.
 
I'd be more concerned with hidden freeze damage. Assume anything that can't be tested is bad. Can't start or drive, that means engine & drive train bad.
 
More freeze damage is my biggest concern, too. It started right up and sounded good. I only let it run about 20 seconds though. I don't like not being able to drive it.

The same vehicle, in the same condition but running would probably bring $5-6000 around here. If the freeze plugs were an easy fix I might be interested if for nothing else than to fix and resale it. A cracked block or other freeze problem would throw a big wrench in that.
 
Even though it starts, you have to think of it as a non runner and needing a possible engine replacement, my paranoia is thinking that if the owner could get an extra $3000 by putting a core plug in and refilling it with coolant, then surely they would.
 
You and I are thinking along the same lines. If I had enough extra money to take the gamble then I might try it. But, it's just too big of a gamble right now.

I don't really believe the owner is really capable of doing the work. If it truly involves dropping the transmission, then I'm not entirely certain I'm capable.

Regardless of if I buy it, I'm curious what's involved in replacing the freeze plug. I've talked with 3 local toyota dealerships and no one can give me an answer.
 
rowdyrabbit said:
You and I are thinking along the same lines. If I had enough extra money to take the gamble then I might try it. But, it's just too big of a gamble right now.

I don't really believe the owner is really capable of doing the work. If it truly involves dropping the transmission, then I'm not entirely certain I'm capable.

Regardless of if I buy it, I'm curious what's involved in replacing the freeze plug. I've talked with 3 local toyota dealerships and no one can give me an answer.
Click to expand...

if you do not buy it let me know I'd be interested in it... if it was me... and in my experience it's just about as easy to pull the engine as the transmission... I'd pull and replace the engine... (I have one sitting in my shop is why i'd be interested) here is my way of looking at it... you can just fix the the freeze plug but then you still need to do the timing belt and water pump... now you have money invested in an engine that most likely has overheated it may have no damage but in a cast iron block / alum head engine they do not like to overheat... in my opinion it's just too many miles to start fixing an overheated engine... $$$ ahead to replace with a 150k or less junk yard engine... but you still have to do the timing belt water pump ect... to that also... you just have a better starting point... from my experience
 
Changing the plugs is a simple job, pry them out, clean the surface and just knock a new one in. Access to where they are, can be is the problem, but the owner has already said that the transmission needs to be dropped.

The risk is if you pay to have this work done and the engine still isn't any good. The owner has more to gain by taking this risk as the truck is only worth scrap value without this work being carried out but worth $5-6000 with a good engine, so paying a mechanic to do it would be worth it for him.

It could be a can of worms for yourself. Ponytl has the answer, putting a replacement engine in from the start, as your not wasting money on what might be a useless engine. Still a risk as the rest of the vehicle still isn't tested as well as you would like, so the offer would still reflect this.

Conclusion is that he is asking to much for it as it is a non runner as you would have to cost in a replacement engine plus service and anything else you find wrong.
 
Thanks everyone for the advice. I'm afraid an engine would be pretty tough to find around here, although I haven't looked. There's an 80 series that I'm going to try to go look at today. It has lower miles and quite a bit of PM already completed. I feel like it's a little more what I'm after anyways.

Thanks again, and if I come back to the 99, I'm sure I'll be back with more questions.
 
I saw this vehicle was for sale. How bad was the interior and would they not let you drive it or was it not drivable due to the work it needed. Guy said it needed freeze plugs, plugs and a radiator.

Thx
 
I may have been expecting more from the interior than I should have been, but I thought it was pretty rough. The front leather was bad, back wasn't too bad. Didn't lay down the third row. Looked like they cleaned the carpet to sell it, but that was probably the first time it had ever been cleaned. And it smelled kind of funny. It could all probably be cleaned, though.
He started it up and it sounded good to me. Only ran it 20-30 seconds. I didn't want to chance overheating it. I didn't see any way to drive it without running it hot. I ran my finger around the radiator and it was rusty. I figure he ran straight water in it. I've never been able to find out the exact location of the freeze plugs to see if maybe you could put some of those expanding plugs in to test it.

If you have anymore questions, let me know. I'll tell you as best as I remember.
 
If the interior had been good I might have took a gamble on it. I'm just not sure how readily available an engine would be. I'm certain there's not one locally, so I wonder how far I would have to go.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top Bottom