I'm afraid to ask this question after using the search function...

[Silicon 70]

How do you know if your headgasket is blown?

After using the search I'm not feeling any better about this. Here's what happened: I noticed while driving home from work two days ago that the temp guage was moving up (this happened to me before in my corolla and it turned out to be a faulty thermostat). As I was pulling up to my driveway, I noticed there was coolant leaking from inside the engine compartment. I pop the hood and see coolant was bubbling out of the reservoir tank. I thought this could be more than a faulty thermostat. So I pull out the FSM and cover the bases of looking for HG leaks and probable causes.

So today I drain the coolant to get to the thermostat and notice coolant is slightly darker than normal(i'll snap a pic later). Then I get the thermostat housing off and saw there was no thermostat in there. Strange.....I flushed everything anyway and put in a new thermostat, but there's no coolant in her yet. I wanted some advice first before I went ahead to do anything else. i.e. spend more money.

By the way its a 87 4Runner, 22re, auto, 138k miles. I'm the third owner, the second owner told me the first owner had the engine rebuilt. This was probably more than a year ago.

 

[KliersLC]

How hot was it outside? Any big hills?

Not having a thermostat usually makes the engine run cooler, but the coolant doesn't stay as long in the radiator, so it sheds less heat, leading to a gradual heat build up and ultimately, overheating.

If you did blow a gasket, it is the one between the combustion chamber and the water jacket, so you shouldn't have coolant in your oil, but take a look at your oil anyway and look for signs of water.

A leakdown test will show a failed gasket also. In order not to spend money, I would fill it with water (be sure to backfill the block), and drive it around and see how the temp looks. After 30-40 min, CAREFULLY open the cap and look for bubbles coming up through the water....

A more accurate way to do this is fashion a homemade leakdown tester. Take a compression gage and buy a quick disconnect for your air hose that will fit on the gage end.

Start compressor and run the pressure in the tank up to about 60 psi and SHUT OFF THE AIR COMPRESSOR.

Then thread in your compression tester and connect the air hose.

Listen for bubbles. It should be very very obvious, and even if you can hear the bubbles, the pressure in your air compressor tank will go down since it is turned off.

Rinse and repeat for the other cylinders....

Good luck,
Dan

 

[Silicon 70]

No hills, just flat road ,it was cold and raining when this happened. I didn't see any white smoke coming from the tailpipe too.

When you say Carefully open the cap, you're talking about the reservoir cap right?

 

[KliersLC]

Nope,
radiator cap.

I am not sure if the bubble test from the 1fz works on the 22re, it should, but the radiator cap is a sure thing...

I had a 22r head warp on me once and it blew the gasket, built up so much pressure that it blew a brand new upper radiator hose completely in two....


Like I said, be careful, I use a big beach towel over the cap....

 

[Silicon 70]

I noticed something else today while I was looking at the radiator. I don't think the radiator I have is for this truck because there are fabbed up mounts bolting the radiator to the body. Also, the radiator I bought for this truck would not fit. Now with more daylight I can actually see inside the radiator with the cap off. There's alot of crap in there, I pulled out half of a sunflower seed and tiny peices of leaves. I did more reading and found out radiators can get plugged up from having particles inside and cause overheating.

I guess I didn't wash it out enough, but I'll still do the test you suggested.

 

[2ndGenToyotaFan]

You bought a radiator and it didn't fit? Did it not bolt in, or did the hoses not fit it? I would guess that the person who put the nonstock rad in also got non stock hoses to make it work... Sounds like you need a new rad at any rate.

 

[Silicon 70]

Sorry I meant the radiator cap I bought would not fit. As for a new radiator and hoses, I've already contacted Cdan about that.

As one of my previous posts the guy I bought this from said the 1st owner had the engine rebuilt from the ground up. I'm starting to have doubts about that.

 

[2ndGenToyotaFan]

The problem with "rebuilt" engines is it's hard to confirm without receipts.

It's starting to sound like the no t-stat/wrong radiator/chunky coolant may have just caused you to over heat..... Cross your fingers for that outcome.

 

[maximusRMP]

Not knowing the exact history of the engine and finding a missing thermostat is definitely a red flag. Usually a quick fix for someone who knows how to take things apart but doesn't know the "why".

Can't fix the overheating problem?
"Hell, just take that 'stat outta there and she'll run real cool........"

New rad, drain the block, see if any oatmeal, pepper, or leak stop crap comes out.

Time to play detective and find any potential problems.

 

[Silicon 70]

When I drained the radiator and the block I found the coolant to be dirty. Alot of dirt or rust settled on the bottom of my yellow plastic drain pan.

The block, I ran water through it until it came out clear and even that took a while.

What do you guys think if I attached a big electric fan on the radiator instead of running with the old setup? I'm also planning on installing a radiator filter just to be safe.

 

[2ndGenToyotaFan]

The stock set up is just fine if everything is running like it should. I've read of a few people going electric and switching back because it's a hassle, and not as reliable as the stock set up.

 

[toygurus]

go with a v6 (turbo) rad. 3 core vs. 2 core

 

[Silicon 70]

3 core is better than 2, but will it still fit? I don't think 87's came in V6's. 87s did come with a turbo version.

Does anyone know if the 22RTE ran a 3 core?

 

[toygurus]

3 core rads. are plug and play

 

[Silicon 70]

from which year?

 

[toygurus]

up to 89 at least, probably even to 94 (or newer)

 

[Silicon 70]

I found a 3 core radiator at radiatorbarn.com, its for an 87. I 'll just go with that.

Any of you guys ever buy a radiator from them?

 

[Silicon 70]

A leakdown test will show a failed gasket also. In order not to spend money, I would fill it with water (be sure to backfill the block), and drive it around and see how the temp looks. After 30-40 min, CAREFULLY open the cap and look for bubbles coming up through the water....

I did this test today and ran it for about 90 minutes doing last minute errands. She didn't overheat at all. Afterwards I opened the cap and there were no bubbles at all and the overflow tank didn't lose any water I put in there. I'm convinced it was all the rust, dirt and lack of thermostat is what caused it to overheat. I also checked all the spark plugs to see if they were abnormally clean and they weren't.

There was alot of info on HG on the 80 section. That's where I read all this stuff. In the future I will not get paranoied about overheating. There's so many ways to diagnose this, I just had to look at somewhere else. Fact is I should've looked at all the other sections on this site because HG failure symptoms are all the same in any engine.

Now I just need to figure out while she still hesitates when the engines warmed up, but that's another thread.