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Hopefully this is not to dumb of a question, but is it possible to have head gasket failure without showing any external antifreeze leakage or the usual milkshake in the oil pan? Possibly a small slow leak that burns up the antifreeze during normal driving.
Today on a drive uptown I noticed it starting to overheat. On the way back home the temp gauge was all over the place, up down up down. After getting it home I waited for it to cool to pop the radiator cap and it was really low. Got about a gallon in it so far but still needs more. On a cold engine I do seem to get allot of white smoke upon firing, more than what I would consider normal but it does not smell sweet like antifreeze and eventually goes away. I have no visible leaks from any of the coolant hoses or the radiator which is new but antifreeze is disappearing somewhere. The only things I cannot see is the coolant bypass tube that runs under the intake manifold and the intake manifold gaskets.
To date the head gaskets have been replaced twice, once by Toyota thru the campaign when it had 100000 mi on it and the second time at 200000 mi when cylinder #5 was leaking externally.
It's happened that way to me more than once. The coolant leaks into the intake or exhaust (not externally) and goes out as white smoke. If you put your hand in the smoke, you hand will become damp. (Don't over-do that; water is a normal combustion product, so with a cold exhaust system you will get some water vapor all the way to the tailpipe without heating much, and in cold air it will condense to visible mist. Once the engine warms up the exhaust system, that small amount of water vapor should be warm enough to dissipate before the cold air can condense it.)
In my case, I got a lot of white smoke, with a fairly significant leak. But your coolant is going somewhere.
It's happened that way to me more than once. The coolant leaks into the intake or exhaust (not externally) and goes out as white smoke. If you put your hand in the smoke, you hand will become damp. (Don't over-do that; water is a normal combustion product, so with a cold exhaust system you will get some water vapor all the way to the tailpipe without heating much, and in cold air it will condense to visible mist. Once the engine warms up the exhaust system, that small amount of water vapor should be warm enough to dissipate before the cold air can condense it.)
In my case, I got a lot of white smoke, with a fairly significant leak. But your coolant is going somewhere.
Get a loaner block test kit from your local auto parts like this http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/de...N1905&pt=N1905
to confirm you have an internal leak. Will only cost you the cost of the test fluid which is about $8.00
I have the 93 version and blew the head gasket with 90K. Lot of white smoke out the pipe. Turned out there was a factory recall on the head gasket and they fixed for free. Note I bought this truck new and still have it. Only put one set of breaks and a power steering pump on it in all these years. has I think 246K now.
Well finally got the drivers side head off this afternoon and will hopefully get the passenger side off tomorrow. The driver side gasket is not pretty. Looks like allot of coolant was going into #2 because the piston top was nice and clean. Approx. 45000 mi on this gasket. #6 #4 #2
03-31-2017, 08:47 AM
