I wasn't really looking for a truck but got offered one for a decent price and took the plunge and bought it. It's a 1992 4x4 xtra cab with the 5 spd and 22re. I drove it before I bought it and all was fine. I purchase it and decide to drive to work and get it up to around 70 mph on the highway for about 2 miles. I get home that evening pull it in the garage. Later I pop the hood after it has cooled and notice the overflow is full and has been pushing coolant out. I check the radiator and it is low so I siphoned the coolant back into the radiator from the over flow. I filled up the radiator and emptied the overflow to the correct amount for a cool engine. I searched the web and found this site and got worried maybe my head gasket is going.

Today after it sat for a day or so I popped the hood started it up and looked for bubbles and didn't see any even when I hit the throttle. So I decide to drive it a little today and drove a good bit and when I get home I checked the overflow and it hasn't changed.

I'm just confused on what to even try to look for. Any other signs a head gasket is going? It does puff smoke the first few minutes after it starts from cold but that's about it. Oil is also normal.

 

It might be a bad radiator cap or a loose hose clamp on the hose from the radiator, to the overflow bottle . The overflow is going to the bottle is unable to be pulled back to the radiator. If the head gasket was going out, you would have a temperature fluctuation at times when at operating temp.

 

Yeah no temp fluctuations stays just to the left of the middle on the gauge. I guess a little smoke when it's cold is normal for a truck this old?

I just didn't want to take it out and end up tearing it up any more.

 

update: did a compression test today and got the following numbers:

1- 150 psi
2- 130 psi
3- 150 psi
4- 120 psi

I will try a block test kit with the blue fluid sometime this week also.

 

long shot, have the valves been adjusted recently?

you can squirt oil into the cylinder before doing the compression check, if the reading goes up momentarily it's because of oil sealing the rings.

what color is the smoke? a bit of white could be considered normal under certain conditions, blue is oil burning, black is gas burning.

 

I haven't touched them and I don't believe the previous owner ever messed with anything other than changing the oil.

The smoke is white but usually clears up by the time it gets to running temp.

I didn't try the wet compression check and probably should have. I might redo the test just to be double sure and put oil in the low cylinders.

 

So I got a block tester today to check the radiator for exhaust gas. Followed the instructions and took the rad cap off and drained it down to the fins. Started the truck up and let it warm up. After it reaches normal temp it i squeeze on the upper rad hose a bit to check and see if the coolant is flowing. All of the sudden it starts a grinding/squeeling noise and coolant starts to built up pressure and begins to spew out.

I did notice the clutch fan wasn't on at that time. (It runs constantly for 5 minutes from a cold start then shuts off)

It also only acts weird like this when the coolant is low, which is what happened previously. It gets a rough irratic idle when it's low also.

This thing has me stumped.