06 Taco With Blown Head Gasket What Would You Do?

06 Base 4x4 double cab long bed with 165K. Body is clean no rust, trans all good as well.

Blown head gasket what would you do? Would like to get 10 more years out of the truck.

1. Buy new heads and replace head gasket.
2. Replace engine with rebuilt or used (50K Mil on used motor).
3. Blue Devil.


Thank you for all the feed back......

 

Have the heads checked/machined. Order Toyota gasket set slap it back together and run it. Mine went around 130k I think.

 

X2 go with what ya got. If you get another motor, who knows what’s up with it.

 

I had a similar situation. 06 with 180k and a new frame. Otherwise in good mechanical shape.
I shopped around and found a local place that was slow.. but did good work truck now has 240k. It’s been about 2-3 years? Do I want a new fancy truck. Absolutely but no payments are a good thing to have

 

I got 238ish on my motor, and swapped it out.

I think it's happening again.

 

Mine went out at 295k miles on my 4.0L V6. Truck ran great with no noticeable issues aside from coolant loss. I replaced the head gaskets including all new seals which are part of the valve grind kit. I had the heads resurfaced since they were slightly warped. I lapped the valves and installed new valve seals as well. I installed a new thermostat and water pump too.

 

Mine went out ~230k, truck was blowing bubbles in the coolant but nothing else bad (overheating) had happened.
Had a local Toyota/Honda shop look at it. They said they would pull the engine and if no resurfacing was needed, they would just change the gasket. If not, they recommended a low mile used engine from a 2007+ (after head gasket prob was resolved).

It turned out that no resurfacing was needed so they just replaced the gaskets. Engine is still running fine now years later with 295k on it. Price was around $3500.

As a bonus, gaskets were replaced and it still has no oil drips or seepage anywhere. The engine compartment looks like new with a little pressure washing. Pretty impressive for a 17 year old truck!

 

If the truck is well maintained and running good, replace the gaskets and drive until 250-300K mi. By then, gas engines will be illegal.