500 dollar junker problems. Weird gunk in throttle body. Help.

This is my 1998 or 1999 Tacoma SST. 2wd, manual. I bought it for 500 about a week ago and started tearing into it to see if I can get it running. The previous owner was the 2nd owner of the truck and it's been parked since the start of the Covid. Anyways... I've seen a lot of things while working on cars but this takes the cake... Does anyone have any idea what could cause this? My best guess is head gasket.

 

Thats a good guess. Hows the oil look and coolant look?

 

About the same. Slightly lighter.

 

Drove into a pond?

 

Holy shit that is oil foam sludge, was this truck a submarine at some point?

If not possibly the transmission and engine oil made all the babies then fed it to itself.

There's coolant lines that run through the throttle body and prevent the throttle plate from icing, my educated guess is you have a crack in your transmission cooler in the radiator (known colloquially as the dreaded pink milkshake) and a cracked or otherwise seal compromised TB.


Possibly more simply an extremely bad PCV valve and an over filled engine?

Good lord I don't even know but that's some fuck soup you've found.

In short...

Shit's fucked yo.

 

looks like the last diaper change.

Swamped and or head gasket.

 

Seeing as how I live in a swamp... It's possible.

 

Hopefully that's all that super F'd for $500.

 

Question... If it is the head gasket, would the gunk be on the spark plugs?

 

Bruh if there's that much in the throttle body it's going to be on and in everything.

I suspected the engine is hydrolocked.

Are you in Florida by chance?

 

Pretty much what I was going to say. I'd bet all the plugs look turrable.

 

Doubt it's locked up. It tried to start a few times when I put a battery on it. And no. I live in South Carolina. That out the way, the plugs looked clean, minus some residue from running too rich or lean.

 

So it will turn over? Compression/leak down test is next for the autopsy.

 

That is a mixture of antifreeze and engine oil

Manual trans no radiator /trans cooler milk shake.

which also means more then likely the cams and crank will be interesting.

should have been a $100.00 truck.

 

Everyone here loves their overlander builds
And here you bought yourself a legit UNDERLANDER!

She’s been under a body of water for sure.

Lots to disassemble and clean mechanically and then you still have to wonder what electrical gremlins you may face.

 

What's inside of the air filter box?

 

Do you know why the previous owner just parked the truck and quit driving it? I’ve never seen anything quite like this, it’s very strange!

 

Get a picture looking down the fresh air pipe that bolts to the top of the engine and pull the valve cover.

 

jeez my boy how many miles on it tho

 

Okay. To answer some questions. Inside the air box was, not joking about this, a mama mouse and her babies. She ran off and we dumped the babies on the ground away from the truck. Has under 200k miles on it. Not sure if it went through any bodies of water, previous owner only said that he swapped out radiators and that it overheated then he parked it after driving it for a bit.
Now... Tonight, I talked to some friends. We're going to tow it to my place and start gutting the motor and getting it ready to be pulled out. We're working on an idea to rebuild the motor entirely and buy a random junk motor to just throw in so it'll get me around for a bit. Not sure if it's the right thing to do but it's the only option that won't take literal months if not years for the truck to get fixed.