looking to change my Headgasket out on my 91 toyota pickup, 22re... it's been running hot lately, and slowly losing water day by day... no water in the oil or oil in the coolant however... but when i open the overflow tank and smell it, it smells like exhaust so i'm assuming after doing much research that my headgasket has a small break and is pushing compression into my cooling system via the number 4 cylindar... i'm going to do a compression check here tommorrow to see if i can notice any differences... however even a compression check may show up still with full compression if it's just a small break...

my question is.

what all do i have to remove to pull the head and replace the headgasket? i've already pulled the valve cover and verified my timing chain guides are still intact and it's not worn through their, the engine is really new only about 10k miles on it, i dropped it in 10k ago... i've never tried to replace the headgasket on one of these so i'm coming to the forums to ask what all i need to pull to replace it without replacing the timing chain cover or timing chain components just the headgasket? every thread i find is people digging into the timing chain components, i know i'm going to have to pull off the gear off the cams right and keep my cahin set in time? if someone could help me out with a sort of step by step of what components will need to be removed once i get the intake, exhaust, valve cover all off... it would be much appreciated

 

Get everything set to TDC(top dead center) and zip tie the chain to the cam gear, then you can rest it on the timing chain guides and it will be fine. Just be careful not to catch the guide with the head....... It'll snap it I just did that to mine

Other then that all you have to remove is the intake and exhaust manifolds. Get your head checked at a machine shop for cracks and flatness

Its not to hard of a job really. Good luck!
A good thread to look through is this one
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...cement-212688/

 

right on thanks hawk, the input is greatly appreciated... i'm still not 100% if it is indeed my headgasket but i'm starting to lean towards it... i've been fighting this heating issue for a while, my engine doesn't overheat unless i take it on a LONG drive and by long i mean about 50+ miles, it starts to whistle out the radiator cap, i replaced the radiator 2 weeks ago i havn't had it boil over yet but i havn't driven it on a long drive yet just about 25 miles every time i've driven it, it seems to still be running hot and everytime i check the coolant level it's low, not that low. i just checked it this morning after filling it up on friday and it's down just about to the fins of the radiator when i look inside and my overflow is completely full... i've probably driven it about 5 - 7 trips of 25 miles each... when i drive it sounds considerably loud when i gas it it almost sounds like an exhaust leak but ONLY when the vehicle is moving if i'm set still and gas it i hear nothing, but while moving it ticks really loudly... i'm thinking that it may have a very slight compression issue where it's going into the cooling system, i havn't seen oil in the coolant or water in the oil yet so its hard to say, but my water is definately going somewhere... thermostat is new as well...

 

My truck did the same thing and it was the headgasket. I found it by getting an oil report done by Blackstone labs. I wanted to see how much longer I could run my oil and they called me and said I had a problem.

Is it pushing coolant in to the overflow tank? if so your radiator cap could be bad. Mine was but in the long run it helped me by not pushing coolant in to my oil

Glad I could help

 

yea i ordered the test kit to get my oil tested as well still waiting on that, the cap is brand new i replaced it when i did the radiator 2 weeks ago... i'm thinking about pulling the plugs one by one and using air pressure in the holes to see if when i apply pressure to the cylandar i see bubbles in my rad... a test i saw that might tell me my answer

 

i would throw a new cap on there first especially since you stated it takes 50+ miles to get hot. i bet your not holding pressure and boiling it off into your overflow tank. try a 5 dollar cap before a few hunderd head job. and if your pumping exhaust into the radiator pull the cap cold and start and see if you have massive bubbles coming out. what does your coolant smell like? is it discolored?

 

i replaced the cap and tstat when i replaced the radiator. no oil in the coolant as far as i can tell, and no water in the oil... read a thread about smelling for this problem and it said to smell in your overflow tank and smell for like a paint thinner/spray can type smell... this is what it did sort of smell like in their wheni just did it a couple hours ago along with the smell of antifreeze. atleast it seemed that way to me will have another give their opinion later as well.

a question to you though, a few hundred doller head gasket replacement? what makes it cost so much? i was thinking of just buying gaskets for aroune 50 bucks.

also incase i didn't mention it, the truck runs really great, just seems to be running hot and seems to be losing water and also seems to have a weird exhaust leak type sound, but ONLY when the vehicle is in motion and around certain rpms... does not do it while vehicle is standing still at the same rpms... seems very odd

 

You remove everything but the starter and transmission,,,,,basically

 

So I bought the engine block test from napa to test for exhaust chemicals in my radiator. Will try that tonight and see what it reads

 

http://www.ncttora.com/fsm/1990-1995...es/repair.html

 

Well. Did an engine block test last night in the radiator and it turned yellow so theirs forsure emissions getting into the cooling system. time to pull the head today

 

Don't know if you've seen this thread or if you have parts yet but there is much good and intelligent discussion on HGs. Maybe something in there can save you from another 10k mile failure.
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...r-22re-220124/

 

Thanks for all the help guys. I got it all changed out in two days. The HG looked intact although it looked as though the layers of it were starting to split apart from eachother it basically just looked like a cheap gasket. Also if it helps anyone for future purchases this was an attarco

 

Thanks for all the help guys. I got it all changed out in two days. The HG looked intact although it looked as though the layers of it were starting to split apart from eachother it basically just looked like a cheap gasket. Also if it helps anyone for future purchases this was an attarco long block with only 20k on it and properly maintained. Valve adjust every 10k, oil change every 3-5k coolant checked every week. I ended up goin with a felpro HG to put in. Hopefully I get more than 20k outta this one.