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Hello all, New member here. I have a 1991Toyota pick up that has very high miles. But it drives like it has 3K on it. It is simply unbelievable. Everything on the truck works as it should, that includes AC, heat, the original radio, no rattles, and squeaks. The way it drives is the reason I bought the truck, and it does everything that I need it to do. In the past six months, I have taken it on four longish trips, each one involved about 400-500 miles in a day. No problems at all. On the last trip tough, the next day, when I saw the temp rise beyond the regular "little less than the halfway mark", I checked the coolant and the expansion tank was bone dry. I refilled it and took it to my mechanic, he looked in the engine through the oil fill cap, it looked just oil, he looked for leaks from the radiator and thought there was a leak there. So we replaced the radiator, but through all this ordeal, the truck drove like a brand new vehicle. I am not exaggerating here, it is unbelievable how nice the truck drives. Come the next morning, after the new radiator, I pop the hood open, and the coolant is gone, and engine oil is frothy. I had a gut feeling that it was a BHG from the onset, but the smooth driving experience and no white or blue smoke from the exhaust convinced me that it was not that, or made me look the other way. Just for the heck, I tried a bottle of K-Seal in the coolant, and that fixed everything for one week. No overheating, no loss of coolant and the truck still drives like brand new. All this has happened in the last two weeks. Then last Thursday, I checked the coolant expansion tank again and it is full of a oil+coolan mixture. I checked the radiator and the same story. Before I ask my question, I just want to thank you for your patience in reading my story so far. So here is what I would like to know from the collective experience of this forum. 1 - If it is indeed a BHG, can the engine still run so well? I have a 2008 highlander with 100K on it and this truck is as smooth as the younger Toyota. The ideling is smooth, no overheating, no RPM jumping around. 2 - Is it possible for the oil to get into the cooling system in any other way? like the water pump housing gasket, timing chain cover gasket?
I would really appreciate any insights the forum has before I take the engine apart to replace all the gaskets. OR Is there a process of elimination that I could follow which might ultimately lead to the real cause. Just to reiterate, I just drove the truck to the shop which is about seven miles from my house and it drove perfect.
I have attached a few pictures of the truck, it's a very clean, stock truck, that I plan on keeping for as long as I can. It is all stock I need to replace the lower valance Once I fix the engine issue, I plan to get a seat cover It is a long bed, and I love it for moving stuff New radiator, but I did spend about 30 minutes in cleaning the rest of the engine After the new radiator, I changed oil, and this is after two days of driving it.
I don't want to yell at you but please do NOT change the text color when you post. I had to highlight all of your text above just to be able to read it. Just keep it White text on the black background, works best.
Yes it is possible for an engine to still run well with a blown head gasket. It all depends on which part of the gasket has failed. In your case it looks like you might have a failure in sealing between a coolant passage and at least 1 cylinder, and I would suspect that you have an 'intermittent" leak. What I mean by this is that the gasket may leak some amount of coolant into the engine at one spot but only at cooler temps, like on warm up & cool down. At full operating temp, it is possible that the heat causes things to expand & basically plug off the leak. This could also happen with a crack in the head but from your description I would somewhat doubt it, since cracked heads are usually caused by excessive heat over a period of time. The Temp Gauge being just a little less than halfway mark I don't think would be enough to cause that to happen, if your temp gauge is correct, and in Toyotas they usually are, in my experience.
Your putting K-Seal in the coolant fixing it for a week would point me to the small but intermittent leak theory, but unless you can physically check everything in the coolant system it can be hard to know (more on that below).
Your second question is interesting & reminded me of one quirk the 22R engines have. Over time as the timing chain and giudes wear, the chain can become slack. Some of the chain guides used to be made of a plastic, and sometimes the driver's side guide would break. This would allow the timing chain to hit the inside of the timing cover, and nearly act like a chainsaw. It would cut into the metal of the timing cover & open up a hole to a coolant passage, allowing coolant to dump into the oil. You didn't mention any rattling noises from the front of the engine so hopefully this isn't what has happened. You said the truck is high mileage (how much?) but we may have no idea when was the last time the timing chain was replaced.
The only reliable process of elimination I know of is direct visual inspection & measurement, and this is going to require disassembly to be complete about it. It never pays to assume anything when it comes to engine repair. Verify that an item is good before moving on to another one.
IF you don't have a cracked head or other major mechanical failure, it's certainly worth fixing in my book. If it were mine, at the minimum I'd tear it down & clean it all out. That would include the head, the timing cover & the oil pan. It pays to get any residue out of the oil system & coolant system due to the oil/coolant mixing. New head gasket, new head bolts (critical, do NOT reuse the old head bolts), new intake & exhaust manifold gaskets, new valve cover gasket & half-moons, new timing chain set, timing cover gasket, new front main seal, new oil pan gasket. I'd just get a good quality complete engine gasket & seal set because it will have all that you need & leave you some unused spares for any future work. Costs less than buying individual gaskets & seals too. Doing a new timing chain set while it's apart is just easier, & one less thing to worry about for the next 100K miles or so. I'd throw a new water pump at it too, if it hasn't been done recently.
I would say that this seems do-able & worth doing. IMO you caught this before it got worse, which is a plus. Let us know what happens with it & what you decide to do.
I'd pull the valve cover and look for a broken driver's side timing chain guide. If that breaks, like mentioned above, the chain will eat through the timing cover into a water jacket. Although this usually results in an almost total loss of coolant into the oil, perhaps it didn't for you. Other than that, the most likely way coolant and oil will mix is the head gasket. You may be able to diagnose this with a compression test, or a cooling system pressure tester.
Also, it's a bit late for you but for anyone else reading this please do not ever use the head gasket in a bottle stuff like K Seal, Blue Devel, or Bars Stop Leak. They make a huge mess of the cooling system and cause future clogs throughout. Bad idea. Fix things properly, don't be a hack.
I don't want to yell at you but please do NOT change the text color when you post. ....
I doubt he changed the text color. Instead, he made the same post in as many Toyota forums as he could find (it's his first post here), and he used cut-and-paste to insert the posting. On this forum, cut-and-paste does odd things with text color.
But it's easy to fix, even now. Edit the posting, highlight all the text, hit the "Text Color" button, and select "Automatic." Don't pick any other color unless you want to experiment.
Hello all,
New member here. I have a 1991Toyota pick up that has very high miles. But it drives like it has 3K on it. It is simply unbelievable. Everything on the truck works as it should, that includes AC, heat, the original radio, no rattles, and squeaks. The way it drives is the reason I bought the truck, and it does everything that I need it to do.
In the past six months, I have taken it on four longish trips, each one involved about 400-500 miles in a day. No problems at all. On the last trip tough, the next day, when I saw the temp rise beyond the regular "little less than the halfway mark", I checked the coolant and the expansion tank was bone dry.
I refilled it and took it to my mechanic, he looked in the engine through the oil fill cap, it looked just oil, he looked for leaks from the radiator and thought there was a leak there. So we replaced the radiator, but through all this ordeal, the truck drove like a brand new vehicle. I am not exaggerating here, it is unbelievable how nice the truck drives.
Come the next morning, after the new radiator, I pop the hood open, and the coolant is gone, and engine oil is frothy. I had a gut feeling that it was a BHG from the onset, but the smooth driving experience and no white or blue smoke from the exhaust convinced me that it was not that, or made me look the other way.
Just for the heck, I tried a bottle of K-Seal in the coolant, and that fixed everything for one week. No overheating, no loss of coolant and the truck still drives like brand new.
All this has happened in the last two weeks. Then last Thursday, I checked the coolant expansion tank again and it is full of a oil+coolan mixture.
I checked the radiator and the same story.
Before I ask my question, I just want to thank you for your patience in reading my story so far.
So here is what I would like to know from the collective experience of this forum.
1 - If it is indeed a BHG, can the engine still run so well? I have a 2008 highlander with 100K on it and this truck is as smooth as the younger Toyota. The ideling is smooth, no overheating, no RPM jumping around.
2 - Is it possible for the oil to get into the cooling system in any other way? like the water pump housing gasket, timing chain cover gasket?
I would really appreciate any insights the forum has before I take the engine apart to replace all the gaskets.
OR
Is there a process of elimination that I could follow which might ultimately lead to the real cause. Just to reiterate, I just drove the truck to the shop which is about seven miles from my house and it drove perfect.
Sincere apologies for the greyed text.
I have tried, but can't seem to find the "edit" button to change the text color.
The truck is in the shop now, awaiting parts and I do hope to get it back in another week. It turned out to be a number of things, the timing chain guide was found to be shattered and the chain has produced some really nice depression in the cover.
When the CH was taken off, two of the head bolts were really, really tough to get off. It seemed like it was going to be the case of the last nail in the coffin, AKA broken bolt in the block.
Long story short, we were able to get the head off, the bolts are out, 300K miles seem to have done their job, and I will be installing a remanufactured 22RE, that I am supposed to get next week from Concord Engines in Concord, NC.
This along with all new gaskets, new oil, and water pump and a new timing cover.
Besides these small niggles, everything else seems to be in great shape.
I still can't figure out, with all that is going wrong in the engine, how in the world it drove that well.
I do plan to keep the truck as my DD for the next few years, so decided to fix it the right way and with all the lifted, living room size trucks on the road, it feels nice to drive one that gets the job done while still gets me close to 30MPG on the highway.
I again thank you all for the help and will be posting a bunch of pictures of the teardown soon.
Life update.
Finally got the engine installed and have driven it for about 500 miles in the last few weeks. While I was at it, replaced the clutch plate as well.
Proud owner of a 1991 pickup with 310 K on the body and 500 on a new engine.
Next in line is to replace the blower motor resistor and the little light bulb behind the control panel.
Now that I have the truck working well and it's going to be my primary vehicle for some foreseeable future, I will replace the seat cover, refurbish the springs, may add some more foam in the seat as it is slightly flatis on the driver side.
I have already added a trunk storage box to have some weather-protected storage.
All in all, I love this little truck and is so good on gas.
Well, you do a visual for external leaks; radiator, hoses, waterpump, etc. Sometimes headgaskets can leak eternally(down the side of the block) but that wasn’t common on the 22r/e.
we always used the chemical block test, checking for the presence of exhaust gas in the cooling system. This was pretty accurate on the 22r. You can get a kit off Amazon for $40.00, but often the parts stores have loaner tools and I’ve seen this offered; you just have to buy fluid.
This is much more definitive than most any other test that I can think of for checking the head gasket. A leak down test would actually do the job,but that’s a little more involved and brings other components into the test that could skew results a bit.
10-20-2019, 02:27 PM
