a couple of days ago my runner over heated and when i opend the hood the radiator was pouring into the resavour and in the back of the engine compartment there was alot of steaming .
I replaced the thermostat and did a coolant change, this took care of the overheating but there is still a small amount of leaking some where by the firewall.
I have searched the site but couldnt find any thing like this. The motor runs great, no white smoke from the tail pipe, no chocolate milk under the oil cap so I dont think its a HG problem, but I may be wrong.
have any of you had this problem before? and where is a good place to start?

 

You could check the freeze plugs on the back of the heads and along the sides of the block. There are a couple of current 3.0 rebuild threads that have pictures with plug locations.

 

Could be the headgasket has opened up to the outside of the engine instead of the inside. I'd take it to a shop to check out if possible. Maybe a hose let go a little as well.

 

more than likely its what babypig said, that is where my old 86 went out. it was the 22re so there was plenty of room to look back there and verify the problem.

lee

 

check theres a block on the back of the intake that holds all of your temp sensors, and also there is a by-pass tube that runs back there. Also your heater hoses are in this area.

 

There's a little hose that runs coolant through the throttle body. It comes out back there. Be sure to check it too.

 

Thanks for all the info. There was a small hole in the heater hose down by the engine. (Im so glad thats all it was !!!)
It was one of those days. Replaced the heater hose, changed plugs (the back one is always fun), pulled all of the belts to change out the alt belt and ended up breaking a bolt on my alt so ended up pulling most of the air intake stuff to pull the alt and eazy-out the broken bolt. Should have just dedicated this weekend to the 4runner and change out the valve cover gaskets ..

Thanks again for all of the help,,,, Im glad I found this board!!!!!!!!!

 

This is what started the ball rolling for me on my engine swap. Same thing exactly. The steam is coolant hitting the crossover pipe.