Hi everyone, i'm new to this site. Haven't had time to create my profile yet. But I really need your guys help. I have a 88 4runner that I just bought. Was kept in a heated garage all this time, its in great shape. that is it was until now. It seems that I have a blown head gasket. the engine is the 3.0. I read that this engine had a recall for the head gasket. I called toyota, and they wont cover it now.
The symptoms that I am having is white smoke from the tail pipe. Bubbling from the radiator into the overflow. Loss of coolant. loss of oil,(but that could be from anywhere). the oil on the dipstick looks normal, but under the oil cap there is this whitish slug. I pulled all the spark plugs all are clean, except one the drivers side rear. it was a little wet, with brown crusted stuff on it. seems to be the same color as my antifreeze is, brown. also in the area in the rear where this bad plug came from, the same color brown seems to be being sprayed everywhere.
Now heres the thing, the truck is not overheating at all, or so the gage says. Today I compression checked all the cylinders, they all checked out high and all about the same.
any ideas? Thanks.

 

Swap in a 3.4 and enjoy more power, better mileage and not living in fear of the HG blowing.

 

my 22re ran fine, did not compression check it, DEFINITELY broke a timing guide and ate into the cover......at this point in my tear-down, looks like the timing chain cover is the culprit. as i've been told, headgasket is not always the problem with those symptoms.

see my thread listed below for my details.