I am hoping to get some insight on this HG failure. I am by no means an expert on these engines, but I know there are a few here that know them very well.

Is this a common point of failure? It looks like the fire ring on the gasket is pushed inward toward the cylinder. You are looking at cylinder #1. There is a coolant port in the head right there, but no corresponding hole in the block.



How did this happen? Is it a common failure? Is it a warning sign I should be investgating?

 

ya mine did the exact same thing. Some people'll say replace the piston i it's been gouged. I took a small fie and rounded out the tiny dent the gasket put in the piston. If the piston has a gouge and the edge is real skinny or pointy, there's a possibility it'll pre-ignite before combustion.

 

Cool, thanks for the advice.

 

my bad HG looked similar and it gouged my piston too. most folks around here didn't think it was that big of a deal. so far, about 15 months and 10k miles later, she's still running strong!

 

Thanks again guys. The engine is all reassembled and running fine. I appreciat e the feedback.

 

Had the dealer do the HG recall on my '91 Runner,3VZE, and they decided it needed new complete heads, but didn't do anything to the block. I have a bad oil comsumption problem, I wonder if the piston was gouged and they didn't do anything about it. Would that cause it to burn any oil?

On my '88 Pickup, I blew the whole block, cracked it, when the HG's failed, they gave me a whole new short block on thta one.