Coolant leak

2011 with the 4 cylinder... I was noticing slow coolant usage. The truck has about 200K, so I thought well, maybe that's just how it is now. But then I noticed this in the engine compartment. Can you guys orient me a little? Is this behind the water pump perhaps, like a gasket seeping? That chunk on the bottom I just reached in a pulled it out, like a big pink clod.

The pic is looking in from drivers side fender area. If someone has had this and can tell me how they solved it, that would be great.

 

I would start by cleaning that area and dry it off. Then pressurize the cooling system with a cooling system pressure tester and see where the leak is coming from. A dental mirror or an endoscope may help in locating the leak in hard to see areas.

 

Looks like it might be in the area of the coolant bypass pipe. The older plastic ones would go bad and leak. Toyota does sell a metal one now you can replace it with.

 

I just read that they stopped using the plastic around 2009. Still could be related to the pipe though.

 

you can rent the coolant pressure tester from any part store pretty much. I did the same last year when I DIY’d my headgasket on a 22re

 

I chipped away a bunch of the caked on pink stuff and it is clearly the bypass pipe. Looks plastic too. I watched a few videos and it looks like a long job.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/need-help-leakage-and-overheating.744555/#post-26505721

You will need to pull the intake manifold off to replace it. see images above in the link.

 

It’s not that bad when removing the intake and I unbolted the fuse box to move it out of the way a little too. There’s a couple good videos online showing the repair. If you get an OEM part, it has a rubber gasket you use. If you get a Dorman or other pipe, it’ll most likely take rtv to seal it. I used permatex with the Dorman pipe and it’s been holding up ok with no issues.

 

Yeah, it doesn't look terrible, just time consuming with so many things to disconnect. I envision the frustration coming from trying to remove fuel connections without the Toyota tool, and it looks like there's a vacuum line near the firewall that's a PITA to access. Possibly keeping the intake gasket lined up while fishing it back into place.

 

Nope fuel lines are super easy. Just press with your fingers. Intake gasket will probably be fused to the intake - I reused mine and it didn’t even skip a beat.

Granted I’m in SoCal so no rust or corrosive materials on the roads, but it’s truly not too bad.

I just did a head gasket job on my truck so this is the second time I removed the intake and it was probably 20 min to get it out or less this time (hard to say because I was removing everything at the same time - not just the intake). Just have a lot of wobble tip extensions and you should be good to go.

 

Can you confirm the Toyota part # I need? I found 16268-75110 but it might be superseded.

Edit: I went with 16268-75112. I think that's the latest...