yeshua

So, I bought an 89 4runner last year over Thanksgiving. I knew I was getting into a project and I've done a lot of work on it the past few months (new muffler, full front bearing and brake job with a driver side spindle replacement, swapped auto for locking hubs, new shocks all around, new spark plugs and distro cap, etc) but there is one issue I cannot seem to figure out.

The first thing I noticed when I bought it was that it had a new radiator and I was told the thermostat was replaced at the same time the radiator was; however, the radiator was nearly 1/4 empty when I showed up for the test drive. I topped it off, got a good test drive in, took in the depth of work it needed and bought it cheap. It has 241k on a rebuild (notorious V6 head gasket blow), and had been sitting for the most part up in Lake Tahoe for the last decade as a mountain truck when the previous owner would visit from LA. Judging by the title and odometer, over the course of ten years, the truck was driven maybe a total of 15,000 miles. Unfortunately, that means it sat a lot and maintenance probably fell by the wayside.

When I got it home, I flushed and replaced coolant and did a bunch of fluid servicing (both diffs, tranny, engine, etc). Here's my problem...it seems to run kinda hot, I'm topping off the radiator every 3-4 days, even after trying some stop leak, and the new concerning thing is I've noticed the sheathing on the spark plug wiring has melted on the driver side of the engine from how hot I'm running. Yet, the whole time, my temp gauge is usually in the normal range but I can feel the heat radiating through the chassis and body into my feet and legs!

I've considered I might need to replace the water pump and that's where the coolant is leaking, but I'm also concerned I might have something going on with the exhaust manifold if I'm melting spark plug sheathing!?

Any suggestions?

HighLux

Do a compression test. Right off the bat. Dont know how? We will teach you. If you dont have a gauge...you can get by with a cheapie ebay set. Not like its gonna get used everyday right?

Have you checked for water in oil? oil in water? white smoke from tailpipe?

Its eating coolant right?

yeshua

Yeah, its going through coolant at what seems a fast rate. No white smoke or oil/water issues. I haven't noticed any milky chunky gunk in the radiator so I'm guessing the heads are still tight. I also had thought compression might be an issue...if I could get a walk through on that, I'll do it this week.

HighLux

acquire a compression tester. And I will guide you through. Ill subscribe to this thread...so I will get an email when you post in it.

Well...the coolant is going somewhere.

If you can park it and drive something else, I suggest it..no reason to run it warm till this is figured out.

Think like coolant. Be the coolant. Where are you hiding?

HighLux

When its running...does it have a strong exhaust flow? or feel weak? try putting your hand over it and stopping it.
Tell me what you discover.