Need help! Oil milkshake! even after new headgaskets.
 

I'm having troubles with a 3.4 in a 96 4runner. I bought it with all kinds of problems going on. First was the water pump. it had busted in half. I replaced it, started filling it up with fluids and antifreeze was pouring out of the back of the block. Found that it popped a freeze plug on the rear of the head. Fixed that, Then finish replacing the fluids. Started it and it ran great, drove it about 10 miles and the antifreeze was full of oil and vice versa. So time for head gaskets. Did that , had the heads surfaced and checked for cracks they said they were fine with no cracks. Just got done putting it back together and it's like I never touched them. It's just as bad as it was. Do you think the block would crack before the heads? Thanks for any suggestions

Search strawberry milkshake

I did, those are talking about tranny fluid mixing with the antifreeze by way of the radiator. This is not that.

Not sure if a 96 has one but my 97 has an engine oil cooler near the oil filter...that would certainly cause this problem if it failed internally.

I'll take a look Is this oil cooler cooled by antifreeze? 96 and 97 should be layed out about the same.

Yes it is.

I just went out with a flashlight and found the oil canister/cooler. It looks like a pain to get to to pull it off to check it for leaks. So the water fead line come's off of the water pump, does it have a return line coming back out of the cooler? If so I could plug one hose and put pressure to the other and see if it leaks off to check it for a crack in the cooler that way, without having to pull it off. Does anyone know if there is a return line coming back out of it? I'm hoping this is the problem replacing it would be much better than replacing the block.

Not to question your skills.

But in the process of replacing your head gaskets you did flush out both the cooling system and the lubrication (oil) systems.

It does not take much of this mixture to make a mess!!

Know that this will take out the bearings in the lower end and cams in short order. Learned this the hard way but a lesson never forgotten

I hate to see people go to all the trouble and have things start to knock

Ya, both systems were flushed out oil and cooling. The motor has ran about 10-15 minutes at idol with new antifreeze and oil in it. only to watch the water level going down and the oil on the dipstick turning foamy and white climing up the dipstick. no knocking everything down low is nice and tight. During running the engine it wans't getting hot but was over heated by the po. they said they drove it 5-6 miles with the busted water pump. so it got pretty hot. it had to get hot to pop out the rear freeze plug out of the head.