toyota4x4907

Yesterday as I was letting my truck cool down before replacing the gaskets in the exhaust, I did a little looking around my truck. Heres two things I found:

First, I was looking under my truck and noticed the fan shroud was missing a section towards the bottom. Since I replaced the radiator, the temp gauge has been reading slightly hotter than what it was before, by about a needle width. Could this much missing cause the engine to run like 2 degrees hotter?:


Second, I took the oil cap off to check the color of the oil. It looks like 3400 mile oil, but on the inside of the cap I found this:

Can coolant leaking into the cylinder make this happen? Or could that be from SeaFoam? I've used the tank of gas I put the SeaFoam in..so I'm thinking its coolant.
Once I had the down pipe off to replace the gaskets, I smelled it and it smelled like burnt coolant. So I deffinitly think I have a leaking HG since Im losing coolant at the rate of a reservoir tanks worth a week to 10 days. I need to do another Compression test. I haven't since August. so hm.
Heres a pic of my truck in the garage. w00t....
Its dirty, but its about -10 F during the days right now, so washing it is out of the question.

Edit: Also, NAPA gave me the wrong size gasket for the pipe-cat. The inside diameter of the new gasket is 2", my exhaust and the old one is 2 1/8". We learn something new everyday!

yota lover

How many miles are on it? Around 130000 to 140000 your timing chain guid will break and cause coolant to leak into your oil empty out your oild and take your valve cover off and look at the right side of the timing chain see if the guid is still there or if it is rubing against the timing cover wall.

toyota4x4907

Its somewhere under 150K miles. The odometer stopped at 142282. I know about the chain guides and everything. I've done valve adjustments a couple times, and the T-chain has the metal guides on it. The PO had it done at pretty low miles because I bought it with 87,xxx miles on it and I haven't had any T-chain work done.

toyota4x4907

Darn it! Wheres Abe!?

abecedarian

HI!!!! HERE I AM!!!!

the shroud does have a gap at the bottom so you can lift it out without removing the radiator fan, theoretically. Seeing your photo makes me wonder if there were two different shrouds. The shroud in my 88 and my 91 both are continuous across the bottom and have piece about 1" wide and about 14" long which curves underneath and wraps around the fan and is held on by two screws. Yours does not look broken, but I could be wrong, so possibly there was a 2nd shroud design, but if that's the case, I would guess the lower section is missing. It can affect cooling, but if it was that way before the rad replacement and wasn't running hotter then I would guess it won't considering your location.

As for the new radiator causing the engine to run hotter... I wouldn't worry about 2 degrees, Celsius or Fahrenheit. Likely, the new radiator has increased your cooling and is causing colder water to be entering the engine, requiring the thermostat to hang closer to closed thus raising the temp slightly. I've noticed on both my trucks that when the coolant is cold (cold start) the temp gauge raises slightly above 'normal' until the thermostat cycles a few times, then settles to the typcial 'normal'. The cooler radiator, due to being more efficient, may also be affecting the fan clutch causing it to slip a little more than normal. Also, you're in Alaska so the colder air through the radiator will cause the engine to run a tad hotter due to both causes I mentioned above.

And then the oil cap... obviously, there is evidence of water in the crankcase. And it could be headgasket related or not. It could be excess condensation caused simply by it cooling off outside. Hot air rises, and has the potential to carry more water vapor, so it will tend to condense on the highest points in the engine. So, clean the oil cap and drive it. If you drain the oil and it doesn't look like the cap, I wouldn't worry much.

And instead of a compression test, which I think wouldn't reveal much, you should do a leak-down test. It also wouldn't hurt to send an oil sample off for analysis just in case, to check for antifreeze in the oil. You're not losing water terribly quickly, but you are loosing some. It may even be that it's not the headgasket at all, but the intake manifold gasket or the auxiliary air valve under the throttle body... may even be some seepage between the engine block, water pump and timing cover.