toyotatom93

So I just did a long trip moving some stuff from Kelowna to Fernie (about 800 km's thru mountain passes) and my little truck did awesome untill one morning it was around -30 C.
I was driving home when the heat all of a sudden cut off while it was still just blowing out barely warm air. I thought it was probably my thermostat, when I went thru the drive thru for coffee the heat meter began to climb, it went back down after a short highway drive so I pulled over to asses the situation.
coolant res: empty
oil: down to half from full still in the cross hatched part. Oil on dip stick looked fine. My heart sank when I saw some milky stuff on the bottom oil cap. I thought heat gaskets shot.
I have seen that milky residue before, a few months ago and I wiped it clean and this is the first time since I have seen it; I reckon it is just condensation.
I wiped the stuff off the cap and drove back to the crappy tire parking lot and went back to Timmy Ho's to wait for something to open and to let the rad get cool enough to look at the fluid.
Sure enough the coolant was low, so I topped it up. And the milky crap was not back.
Overfilled the oil by accident but the truck seems to like more then the dipstick reccomends anyway.
Started her up and began to drive...at first I was thinking just get closer to home for BCAA (the tow truck) but soon I realized she was driving was good as ever, maybe even better. And the heat worked fine now as well.
Made it home fine, the next day put a little more coolant back in the rad (basicly till it pools a little on top of the rad guts) and now back to normal. Coolant res was basicly still at the same level.

So my question is where did the coolant go? My truck burns oil so thats no suprise, but after not showing all the signs of a leaky head gasket all I can think of is being that cold outside and the engine hot something warped or the rad itself may be letting it out once it gets really hot??? It doesent leak anything on the the ground. And doesent make any sence to me
I was thinking of maybe trying some rad sealer crap and see how it goes from there unless someone out there had similar issues or knows something I should be doing.
I going to have to go back there soon for work and snowboarding. And would like to not worry about it breaking down. But temperatures that low kind of worry me now.
Oh yeah the same morning my canopy door started breaking on one side of the hinge, had to bungee it.

toyotatom93

Anyone?










nothing?

stupid_mud_gremlins

had the same problem....guess who's (STILL) finishing up a head gasket job

JGrund85

This may sound stupid, but I had a similar issue once, and it scared me a little. But I figured out that the radiator cap was just a little bit loose and letting out fluid slowly. I don't know if this was your problem or not but filling her back up and tightening her down solved my problem.

toytech76

nooooooo don't use the sealer stuff. It causes more problems than it helps. I would find someone with a cooling sys pressure tester to see if you can see any leaks or if your H/G is failing you will know when you start it up and have a miss

toyotatom93

Thanks for the replies.
I really hope it's not the head gasket. Hopefully the rad cap is worn out or something just as simple is causing the prob.
And ya I figured the rad sealer is probably not the best way to go about it.
Guess it's time to pressure test it.