Head gasket help

Hi guys, I have a 1997 Toyota 4 runner, 4cyl, manual transmission, with 217k miles. I have a blown head gasket. How do i know its a blown head gasket? I see a super high level on the dip stick telling me coolant is mixing with oil, I see the coolant dripping down the front of my engine, and the coolant is splashing my belts making them squeak. Also i've seen the sweet white some out my tail pipe once when I left it idling a long time.

I never fixed one of these before but there are a lot of how to videos out there. Looks like your just stripping parts out of your car basically until you hit where you need to be.

I am posting because I was wondering what is a good brand head gasket set for my car. After all the only thing worse than fixing a blown head gasket, is having to fix it again because you used bad parts. Also I was wondering how I can get the torque specs for everything... assuming its even necessary to use a torque wrench. Any other tips would be much appreciated as well. Thanks!!

 

I used DNJ on the 22RE with no complaints.

A torque wrench is absolutely necessary. The head bolts must be a very specific torque, and it's easy to snap the timing cover bolts if you overtorque them. Plan on replacing your timing set while you're in there, and the water pump and oil pump too. You can get the torque specs from a copy of the Factory Service Manual, or a Chiltons or Haynes or whatever.

 

If you have any questions about the 22RE James is the man for this at everything 22RE. He is the owner of "The Truck Shop" San Diego CA. I know he has a few 22RE in his lobby built and ready to ship IF you need one. Just saying.

Blue

 

He's got a 3RZ, Blue. I only mentioned the 22RE because they're similar.

 

Hi guys, So I did a compression test on my 4runner and see an even 60psi across the board on both wet and dry runs. So perhaps I spoke to soon. From what I've learned you can't have a blown head gasket w/out a loss of compression. Any other ideas of what I could try to fix this? also did a cooling system pressure test and found no leaks. thanks

 

60 PSI, or 160? 60 is way way way way too low.

 

60 psi across all cylinders, both wet and dry. That is low huh? what do you think?

ALSO *** I take back what I said about coolant in my oil. There is no coolant in there, the dipstick was just stained by something. No coolant in the oil.

Looks like it is leaking out the front, which explains why coolant is hitting the belts... im thinking from the water pump is bad. Can a busted water pump cause misfires?

 

Crazy low. I don't remember the exact numbers and I'm too lazy to look, but spec is around 170 and minimum is about 130 PSI. I don't know that the truck should be running at 60 PSI, to be honest ... when you did the compression test, you removed all four plugs and held the throttle open, right? If you don't, your numbers will come back low. The only way a bad water pump could cause a misfire is if the coolant was getting into the ignition wires. If your wires and coils are in good shape, that shouldn't happen.

You should back up to square one so you don't get ahead of yourself. Rent a block test kit from an auto parts store, that'll confirm or deny the presence of exhaust particles in your coolant. No exhaust particles, no BHG. Get that ruled out and you can breathe a sigh of relief and start looking at bad water pumps and tracking down misfires.

Also pull the OBD codes, there might be info lurking in there. Faults don't always trigger a check engine light.

 

Hi, i removed all 4 spark plugs and did it one cylinder at a time. I turned the key for 5 revolutions and then went to look at the gauge. What do you mean by held the throttle open? Like push the gas while turning the key? How hard? I followed the way eric the car guy said to do it and he didnt mention stepping on the gas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_tbksFYhl4

Here is a pic of my water pump taken from laying under my car. You can see a white trail of something (old coolant?) that left a mark going down the front of the engine. Does this mean its shot?

Also when i put the spark plugs back after the compression test i reversed the order. So i had a misfire in cyl 1, and i moved that plug to 4 and the misfire followed. Going to try new spark plugs and see what i get. The ones i had in there are a year old and single tip NGK, i'm going to try replacing with double tip ones.

 

If your misfire followed the plug, you should definitely replace them. You should also investigate why the plug went bad though, what does it look like?

Coolant weeping from the pump means it's shot, yeah.

You hold the throttle body open (or floor the gas pedal, whatever) when doing a compression test so that there's something in the cylinder to compress. If the throttle body is closed, no air gets in and your readings will be low.

 

Thanks for the support guys. The car is running much better now with the new spark plugs. I went with NGK iridium tips.

Im doing the water pump right now. I immediately am hitting a road block trying to get the belts off and out of my way. Where is the tensioner on this thing? There is nothing to pull on with a socket to loosen it up.

 

top view of tensioner

 

I never installed AC on mine so I dunno about that one. You've got pics of the PS belt tensioner and the alternator tensioner though.

 

crap one problem after another. So I know why the bottom of the water pump leaked, the bolts wont tighten down on 2 of the bottom holes, they just kinda spin in there, I can tension them down. They are the same 10mm bolts used all around.

 

Yuck. Pull it off and have a look at the threads. I'll be surprised if they stripped out before breaking those tiny bolts, maybe your bolts are too short? See if they'll thread in and get snug without the water pump in the way - if so, they're too short. Maybe a previous mechanic mixed them up.

If they are stripped, then that's yucky. The answer is to drill them out and helicoil them, for which you'll probably have to pull the radiator if you haven't already. Welcome to the wonderful world of wrenching on your own truck, just close your eyes and drink a beer and think of all the money you're saving.