mochester

I get a nice size cloud of white smoke when i start it up in the morning. It does come up a little low on water after a couple days as well. But what confuses me, is there is no water in the oil, or vice-versa. It had a freeze-plug leak, i went and got that thing replaced and the dudes brought the white smoke to my attention....I don't believe it ever smoked this bad before, so i was thinking maybe it was a deal where once the cooling system got all sealed up (the bad freeze plug), a weak spot in the head gasket failed (wherever that might be).

a lot of people are saying, "if there's no water in your oil, its not a head gasket". i've been having a pinging problem with this motor for a while, don't know if its related...i have to run it on premium, and even then, on a hot day i'll hear a ping or two out of it, going up a steep hill or mashing it to merge onto the freeway. i figured if it pings, maybe its running hot

any input you guys have would be great, thanks

dcg9381

Don't believe everything you hear. You can have a HG leak without water in the oil or vice versa.

In your case, you probably blew at the border of one (or more) of the cylinders. You're leaking water into the cylinder when the truck is off and there is pressure in the cooling system.

A leak down test will show this as bubbles in the cooling system.

4runnerx3

The gasket can let go and allow water to blow out the exhaust and not get in the oil. Take the spark plugs out and shoot some air in each hole, water will probably spray out of one hole. Broken ceramic on a spark plug is a sign of water too.

dcg9381

mochester

thanks, that picture explains alot


now i have another quick question
a friend suggested we try simply re-torqueing the head. he said he has solved a minor head gasket leak that way, even if only temporarily, and its worth a try considering the work involved in doing the gasket

good or bad idea?

Ron521

Once owned an Isuzu which had a slight coolant leak into the cylinder. Does the truck consume coolant, or oil. The white smoke COULD also be oil dripping past your valve guide seals when parking the truck.
Either way, I'd recommend fixing it properly the FIRST time, and be done with it.

dcg9381

There's no harm in retorquing the gasket, but I'd suggest that you determine which cylinder(s) are leaking via leak down or pressurizing the cylinder.


Then you can retorque the head and retest.
It's unlikely that retorque will resolve this issue.. The HG is one of the weaknesses on this motor.

Do *not* overtorque the bolts. Trust me. You can strip the block.

Assuming your mating surfaces are in good shape, the "upgrade" is ARP studs and a MLS (multi layer steel) head gasket if your block is decked fine enough to make use of it. MLS gaskets don't need to be replaced, you can just retorque them if you do things like a cam change.

BeaterToyota

I thought that I had a blown HG for quite a while and I had the same things happening. No oil in coolant, no coolant in oil, but I didn't have any steam/smoke from the tailpipe. Cylinder compression was pretty even, but #4 was a few PSI lower than the rest. But I kept losing coolant.

I swapped out t-stat, radiator cap, hoses, etc trying to determine where the coolant was disappearing to. I even swapped in a new radiator, as mine was pretty beat.

Things got worse and worse, and I developed the steam problem out of the exhaust and my junk overheated a couple of times. When I pulled it apart it didn't look much worse than the picture above. But the overheating had warped the head.

Look at my #4 cyl. You can see how the coolant was leaking over the piston and "cleaning" it.


I just got everything put back together and fired it up. Runs good. I used the kit from www.engnbldr.com.

dcg9381

Bingo.. that clean cylinder is a tell-tail sign of a water leak into the cylinder.
Everyone is amazed that seafoam cleans carbon off those pistons... Water will do the same thing!

Your head should be checked - you typically can't see the warp!