ShawnH

I have the infamous 3VZE 3.0 V6 motor in a 1993 4Runner with an automatic tranny. Im not a newbe to vehicles, so I KNOW this usually means that its a blown head gasket. BUT I've read several posts that suggest that this could also be a breach between the coolant and trans cooler parts of the radiator. I have no water in the oil. It's clean. I just did an oil change to be sure. I don't believe I have any water in the transmission fluid that I can tell. Ive pulled the dip stick to see and it looks relatively clean as well. I don't have any steam comming from the exhaust pipe, and it's not overheating. The only things I notice is that it doesn't seem to want to kick down into "passing gear" when the throttle is stomped, and there is that brown oily sludge in the radiator and the coolant overflow tank. Because of the transmission's not wanting to downshift, and the posts I've read about changing over to aftermarket trans coolers because of the breach issue in the radiator, it makes me consider that it MIGHT be the transmission fluid into the radiator issue. My question is this... How do you tell for sure, aside from taking it to a shop and forking over $$$ to do some sort of test? Is there a way I can test it at home to be sure? Any input here would be great. Thanks guys and gals!
Ps. As you can see by my post count, Im new to the forum, and this is my first toyota, and I've only had it for a week....Be gentle...lol

toyminator2000

Could be stop leak in the radiator.

jammer1313

yeah, like "Bars Leak," we used to use it when I was younger,some nasty looking stuff.

Flush your coolant system, refill, and see if it happens again, tranny fluid and water = pinkish if your fluids red.

toyminator2000, cool sig, I agree.

snobdds

I would pressure test the cooling system first. That will give you an idea weather or not your radiator is shot. If that checks out then do a compression test. If that checks out then I would flush the radiator and drive it and see if it comes back. Between the two, you will get a good feel for where your problem is

ShawnH

those are good places to start. I willl do that and if it helps, I'll take some photos and post them as well. This may help someone else in the future.

Lex.Luther

Sorry, Bro...you've lost a head gasket. It sucks...but it is what it is.

See my other post on what often causes this: excessive backpressure due to a partially clogged CAT. If the rest of the engine has been well maintained, this is not the end of the world. You can swap out those head gaskets without too much pain and you will learn a lot about your motor in the process. You should definitely have the heads over to a machine shop for a valve job and to ensure the heads are within tolerance. As for the block, you can check it yourself via the simple instructions you will find in the Shop Manual. IF, BTW, you don't have one of those...you must correct that situation ASAP. The Toyota shop manuals are very well written and a must have for several reasons that I won't bore you with here.


Good Luck!

ShawnH

Thanks for your post and your advice Lex. It will be well followed!

Team420

I have seen the tranny fluid and coolant mix in the rad before... its rare, but does happen. How many miles on ur rig? How many when u bought it? I personally havent seen the oil mix into the rad on these rigs before...usually it goes the other way, but I have seen it numerous times on other vehicles, so its not outta the question.
Also...check ur tranny fluid...does it look brown and old? Or fresh and red? If its red, than the brown in ur coolant is not likely tranny fluid...as mentioned above it will usually be pink, but if ur tranny fluid is brown and nasty... that could be the cause... and would likely cause rough shifting.

ShawnH

Okay, so this morning I went out, pulled the radiator cap and overflow cap and took some pics. Maybe this will help give an idea of what I'm describing.
The odometer has 190,629 miles indicated and I've only had it for a little over a week now. I don't have any history on the 4Runner, but am aware of what I was getting into with a vehicle with this many years and miles on it. I bought it with the idea in mind that it was going to be a project. so the project begins.....
I shall begin with the radiator flush using the automatic dishwasher detergent.

Lex.Luther

As they say..."A picture is worth a thousand words."

No doubt about it, my friend...that's oil in your coolant. With the mileage and other information supplied, the most likely cause is a blown head gasket.

I recommend replacing the head gaskets yourself if you have the stomach for it. It's not an easy job and you are likely going to need to pick up a few extra tools. However, you will do a better job than anyone else, can fix other things as you go along, and will learn a great deal about your motor. Plus, you will have some extra tools that you did not have before...such as a camshaft pulley wrench.

As I probably mentioned before, get the shop manual. Also, note that there may be a separate one for the motor - there was for my '88, which offered both the 22RE and the 3VZE.

Good luck and don't hesitate to drop me a line if you decide to 'go for it' and get stuck. I have three 3VZE's in the garage: two in vehicles and another rebuilt one on a pallet that we are getting ready to swap out for the one in the '88 4Runner. So, I have a good bit of experience working on the buggers.

laskt9

yum. chocolate milkshake. gonna agree with lex definitely a head gasket

Elton

that sucks man but im gonna say hg too

Lex.Luther

I wish I had a picture...but that is exactly what mine looked like when the HG blew. To add insult to injury, I had just installed a brand new radiator. But, I was able to get it all out with a garden hose and some Mr. Clean (off the vehicle, of course.)

Team420

yup...blown h/g... sorry dude.

ShawnH

Thanks Lex and everyone else for the confirmation. I will be tackleing this little job shortly so I may have some questions. I wonder if I should plan on doing BOTH head gaskets or just the blown one? Does anyone know if Im going to need any "Special" tools to do this job? Or will the basic stuff suffice? I just want to be prepaired for as few trips BACK to the auto parts store as possible. Also, I downloaded the shop manual for this 4Runner from a link on this site. That should help, (I hope)...

Lex.Luther

You definitely need to do both head gaskets. Particularly if you decide to do some other stuff, you are going to be tightening up 'the top of motor' and you would not want to do that to just one side.

Not sure what all has been said in this thread (including me) but regarding special tools, you will need something to break the camshaft pulleys. I never came up with any trick on these and, even when I had purchased a pulley wrench, it took quite a bit of muscle to break those bolts using the new tool and a 1/2" breaker bar. I purchased a generic pulley wrench (I think that is what they are called) off of one of the big tool sites...I don't remember which one. With regard to the shop manual, it is indespensible...you will glad you have that. I recommend printing out the portion you will need as you will be referring to it often. It mentions a lot of 'special tools' - in all cases, there is something else that will do the job, so don't sweat those. I actually broke down and attempted to buy one a couple years back and the dealership looked at me like I had a third eye.

You will need some good metric tools (3/8 and 1/2 socket and drives) and a 1/2-inch drive breaker bar for the breaking the bolt on the crankshaft pulley. You should by the highest quality gasket set you can afford. I recommend going with Toyota OEM as this includes all the seals and gaskets you will need and will be the highest quality. New head cover gaskets are included as well and you want to replace with the best quality as this is a common oil leak point.

You will also want to plan on replacing the timing belt and water pump while you are at it. With regard to the timing belt, there is an idler pulley that coolant goes through. Make sure you get a timing belt kit that indludes that.

There are a lot of vacuum tubes...I simply label them with Avery mailing labels and take lots of pictures with the digital camera before and during dissasembly. If you do this, you will get it back together without problem, though it might scare the crap out of you if doing your first time.

Oh...and of course you will need a quality torque wrench. Get a big one with a 1/2 drive because you are going to be using it on the head bolts. Speaking of which, you need to buy new head bolts and you don't want to spare cost on these.

No need to buy a new oil pump. I have done this in the past and I can tell you that is not where you are losing oil pressure...it's the rest of the oil circulation system that has developed slop over the years that causes the oil pressure to drop a bit on older engines. I just run thicker oil (particularly in the Summer) and that does the trick.

The rest is a lot of patience and a good dose of care. You are going to be disconnecting a lot of electrical connectors and, for some reason, every one of them disconnects a little bit differently. The shop manual won't help you with this. Just take care in determining how best to proceed as they will probably be brittle and could break if you don't take them apart correctly. On both of mine ('88 and '95) every one of the fuel injector connections broke when I disconnected them. So, when I put them back on, they did not 'snap.' I have had no problems.

If portions of your wiring harness look like they are cooking and/or the thermal protection is disintegrated, I recommend taking the time to wrap the wires up with some new protection - I just buy the plastic corregated stuff and secure it will small wire ties. This will give you some peace of mind when you get it all back together.

Also, you will want ot consider replacing the knock sensor while you are down there and have access. Check that heater bypass pipe that runs under the intake manifold...make sure that and all the heater hose lines connected to it are righteous before buttoning it all back up as these motors will commonly start leaking somewhere in this area eventually and it is a nightmare to diagnose and access to fix. Now is your chance to forestall future headaches in that regard.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment. If you get stuck, don't hesitate to drop me an email. I have had the tops off of these motors several times now and my family sees everything strewn all over the garage and finds it amazing I can get it back together and it actually runs. I am amazed as well but it gets easier every time. So, again, you are goinig to be pulling so much stuff off of this motor and it might freak you out a little bit, but you will get through it and -- like me the first time I did it -- that sucker will crank right up when you turn the key. Good luck and don't hesitate to ask for help...I am (literally) about to drop a rebuilt 3VZE into the '88 - so all of this will be very fresh in my mind.

Lex.Luther

One last thought is a quality set of metric wrenches. You will want a good set of long box wrenches as there are going to be a lot of sticky machine bolts to loosen. A lot of these go into aluminum -- they don't have a lot of torque on them but, again, can tend to be sticky. You don't want to be using open-ended wrenches or, heaven forbid, a crescent wrench. You will also need to buy a couple of 'giant' combination wrenches. One place this will be required is to loosen the fuel regulator from the fuel rail...I think that one is one of the biggest...maybe a 22 or 24mm. Quality wrenches of this size are quite expensive and don't come in sets - so, let me know if you want a list of the sizes you are going to need and I will go out to the garage and check. I think another 'biggie' is needed for disconnecting the high pressure line from the power steering pump. I think that one is a 19 mm but won't swear to it. Finally...on your metric sockets...in particular for the 3/8-inch drive, make sure you have a quality set of 6-point sockets along with your 12-points. Again, some of the smaller bolts such as those holding down the camshaft journals are only torqued to maybe 12-15 ft-lbs but can be quite difficult to break. On both of mine the journal over the No. 5 cylinder was particularly problematic. You don't want to risk rounding out these suckers or you will be headed to the store to buy a set of extraction sockets -- though they work quite well, they are not cheap. And...you will need to purchase new machine bolts to boot. If you take care from the start, using a six-point socket and ensuring it is absolutely flush on the bolt head before applying torque to loosen, they will break clean on the first try and you will have no problems. If, on the other hand, you go with 12-point sockets and/or do not get the 6-point absolutely flush on the bolt head, there is a high likelihood that some of the camshaft journal bolts...and maybe others...are going to round on you.

ShawnH

All great information Lex! Thank you for taking the time to type all of that. You mentioned SEVERAL things that wouldn't have come to mind until it was either too late, or making me drive to the auto parts store for yet ANOTHER item. I will probably take alot of photos while doing this and, in the end, post a "Newbe changes his first head gasket" thread. Maybe it will help someone else later on. Im going to head to the toyota dealership to order the top end gasket kits and other parts this week. Maybe I will get lucky and they'll have some of it in stock!
Thank you again for all of the useful information! I'm sure I will have ten thousand other questions along the way, so stay tuned!

Lex.Luther

Will do, my brother. I will also try to do a quick inventory this weekend of the oversized wrenches required and post that information.

SSGPohlman

To Shawn.....From Shawn.....
Although I don't have the v6 version I too will agree w the hg being out as I am just finishing up the hg on my 22re, though it wasn't it and way long story short it was timeing cover, I do have a bit of a solution once it's back together. Now I know some are probly gonna tear me up over this but I was trying the fill n flush method and it was takeing forever to clean out the oily water from the system so I decided to fill it up and put a small cap (4oz ish) od laundry detergent in the rad. Drove around bout 10 min came back and hook the hose to the attachment and opens the rad cap (no thermostat yet) and turned on the hose, the detergent dissolved all the oil and in bout 5 min of running the engine w the water on n overflowing from the rad it was clear again (yay) and no adverse effects still from it. I'll let other chime in here but that was the easiest rad clean yet for me, someone else done this care to comment?