kneeldownb4me

Hi this is my first time posting I have been reading a lot of the post and it seems I am not alone with this problem. I have a 1994 2wd pickup 22Re and close to 250,000 miles.

I had a problem with losing coolant before but after a couple years finally found problem..(I shall share that later in case someone is losing coolant and see no obvious place it is going).
Well during all that time I ended up warping a head and had to have work done on it. It was shortly there after I started experiencing these problems.
I hear a gurgling noise coming from dash on passenger side,
It has been doing this for a while and cannot seem to narrow it down my mechanic said to wait till it started missing and bring it back in.

It surges at random times (or so it seems random) and more so when you press brakes but not always, at times you hear and feel it as you are driving. When it is "acting up" it will idle high even when not surging.

It loses coolant consistently. It fills the overflow but never gets sucked back into the radiator it spills out the overflow tube.

Radiator has been flushed, replaced a bad vacuum hose (noise got worse actually), new air filter and thermostat.
Today I was attempting to "burp" the system and now believe my new thermostat is stuck open.

With the radiator cap off I started the engine and right from the start the coolant started coming out the radiator.

So now I have a couple questions for those experienced
1) Do I need the dual temp thermostat? I have never had problems with spiked readings or with my gauge acting wonky...it shows above normal if it is low on coolant.

2) Would the thermostat cause all these problems?

Thank you for your time and any help..

Team420

Sounds like you are either airbound, or have a bad head/head gasket.

Id start by putting the rig nose 1st on an incline, and running it with the rad cap off to burp any air in it. If that dont work... exhaust gasses may be pushing the coolant out, and well... you know that aint good.

kneeldownb4me

I tried that this morning and with the cap off the coolant keeps running out. Is that head or sign on bad thermostat (please oh please say the later)

Team420

Idk... har dto diagnose over the interwebz....

But... how long didja let it run? it can take a while.....

kneeldownb4me

Today we borrowed the tool dye tool from O'reillys. It shows to have a bad gasket (fingers crossed that is all) This is frustrating as I had the head resurfaced, less than 2 years ago. We are going to ATTEMPT to do it ourselves. Usually I take to our mechanic but we have another ride down so got to save some $$$. I know it is not easy but does look to be doable (am I wrong?) we have had experience working on old Chevy never felt brave enough to tackle the Toyota before. I see a lot of photos (always great) on here and lots of advice so we are going to use this, the Haynes manual and our patience and start Sun. or Monday.
Anything else we need to do while we got it torn apart? Timing chain was replaced a few ago and then guides replaced a couple years ago....anything else? or and advisment against doing it ourselves?