What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

Dude that sucks, sorry to hear that. Hope it's just a new head gasket and nothing worse

 

Never a good time but this is really bad timing.

 

It mess up a day before I go camping. We were going to hit up bald mountain this weekend.

 

Yeah, I guess this is why we check these things. I was getting it ready to tow and doing all the fluids. Now that I know about it I can keep up on it and watch for additional symptoms. I've got the Z once Im back in WA. I'll tear the cruiser apart and set it right then.

 

I think Jason did this too and may know. @jubei

 

Seems like kinda low miles for you to be having this happen but

 

It's a known issue for the 1FZ, Toyota used a crap material for the HG after asbestos was officially set aside and they since fixed it. You eat one HG for seemingly no reason and replace it and it never happens again. People on ih8mud actually do it as preventative maintenance, that's how common it is. It might just be mines time. But we'll know tonight, I replaced some minor parts that also could be the issue and I'm waiting to see if they fixed it

 

Did my inner and outer tie rods tonight, pretty straight forward job. Only I didn't order new bellows for the inner tie rods and I should have because I found a small hole in both of them when taking them off. So I'll have to take the outers off again to do that.

I did notice quite a bit of dirt inside the outer tie rod on the pass side which I guess got in there over time from the tiny hole in the bellows. Hopefully that doesn't spell death for my steering rack. Cleaned off as much of it as I could.

Installed OEM outers and 555 inners from LROR

 

Did your wrench fit?

 

Yessir, though getting a pipe wrench to fit snugly enough to loosen the inner tie rod wasnt exactly fun but it worked

 

Just checked, didn't pull fluid back into the rad. It's not critically low or anything but the rad should always be 100% full. Guess that pretty much condemns it though.

 

Bummer.

So can you tell me what you mean by it's not pulling fluid back to the rad?
a) how'd you find this out?
b) what are the symptoms?
c) is coolant just not circulating, or is it going missing?

Sorry, dumb questions. Learning.

 

Burp tank was low, filled it, popped rad cap to check level since burp tank was low. It wasn't full but had some coolant above the fins still so filled it and went on my merry way. Checked again after it had cooled and it was low in the rad and too much in the burp tank. Figure combustion gasses are getting in there and pushing the coolant into the tank, not sure why it never draws coolant back in but either way its a classic symptom of a bad rad cap or a bad head/headgasket. Coolant is circulating, my cruiser is running at an appropriate temperature, it isn't smoking, it just is presenting early symptoms of an annoying issue. I just don't wanna cook the thing before I make it to WA. If it makes it to WA in one piece I'll get it sorted.

 

Get a combustion gas tester. They’re cheap. I honestly don’t think you have a head gasket issue though.

 

I'll do it tomorrow cause if it fails that I'll send it straight to Camelback and get bent over, seems wiser to have an aching backside than an engine welded solid from towing while injured.

If it passes the block test what do you think it is then? I'm having trouble coming up with any other points of failure that I wouldn't visually see.

 

It’s hard to say without me being there. Pressure test and combustion gas test is what I’d do.

 

Where did you purchase the new shaft?

 

Sorry to hear that.

 

Sounds like Subaru. Bought a Forester with a bad HG once to see what Subaru ownership was like.