I was told pink milk shake

Known problem with 3 gen 4runners. As said above water and coolant mixing, sorry not good news.

 

I had a small leak in that area so I put on small hose clamps on both ends of the hose, cleaned it up and no more leaks.

 

OP's problem IS NOT "PINK MILK SHAKE"

 

OP you just need a new hose, yours is split. I had this same problem on my Tacoma.

 

Sometimes you can just clean the radiator cap, clean out any dry build up, work the springs, check the gaskets and re-install.

 

Sorry. Glad I'm wrong.

 

Thanks. I’ve got a few to look and do.
I’m glad to know it’s not that.

 

The dealer is the last place I would be taking my truck for any service work other than warranty issues $$$$$$$$
any local shop can fix you up .
As mentioned above by some of the guys ,this is not pink milkshake . You would see oil globules floating in your Anti-freeze . Transmission fluid floats in Antifreeze
The internal factory transmission cooler thats situated in your radiator can come apart . When this happens , transmission fluid and anti-freeze mix together .
Transmission fluid that leaks into your radiator doesnt really cause any problems , Its when anti freeze gets into your transmission that you run into trouble very very quickly .
Anti-freeze removes the bonding glue that hold your clutches together inside an automatic transmission . Inside the A750E series transmission , we have 50 bonded clutches
You have to catch the pink milkshake effect the same day your transmission becomes contaminated with anti freeze and thats very hard to do . There are no early warnings .
The transmission will just start slipping and by the time you feel the slipping , chances are the antifreeze had enough time to remove most of the clutch bonding
In all the years I have seen the Pink Milkshake effect , I have possibly saved 2 customers from a complete transmission rebuild .
The Pink Milkshake effect occurs in all makes and models

 

I've seen a few Honda owners lose their transmissions to SMOD. The ATF fitting that connects to the radiator had a steel washer that would rust and cause the ATF cooling part to rupture inside the radiator allowing coolant to mix with ATF. This occurs most in road salt regions. The prevention was to change the radiator before the internals started rusting and crumbling.

 

Op something like this should help. I know it helped mine from seeping.

 

Toyota's coolant coagulates when it seeps out of places. Helps slow the loss (like blood platelets).
While is always a good idea to be aware of your fluid condition, I'm not sure I'd do anything with the trans other than check level and condition. If its still got a reddish/lt brown hue and smells like trans fluid, start with a drain and fill, then later you can have it flushed if you like. If its dark brown/black and smells off, or burnt, leave it alone, just keep it at a proper level.

 

This is a pink milkshake I had in my 03 Tundra when a Tranny line fitting corroded and mixed everything up. It was a pain in the arse but it still runs good after flushing it out with 22 quarts of fresh fluid. You can see the fluid getting back to normal as I ran new fluid through.

 

Agreed, and the reason I did away with the trans cooler in the radiator and installed a dedicated cooler for the transmission.

Used the the oem small aux trans cooler and plumbed it as a power steering fluid cooler.

Do the flushes myself by removing a trans coolant hose. Do them every 30,00 or so miles. Use Mobil 1 ATF in my 2010 instead of Toyota WS and have no issues, plus shifts better.

Your posts from a long while back was part of what I used to make the change to M1. WS is crap fluid.

 

It has been awhile.. But just to follow up on this,I replaced the cap and the problem is fixed. No more coolant issue.

Thanks alot!

 

I'm a little more partial to vanilla milkshakes, but hey, to each his own.

 

TRD Offroad with tow package has a large tranny cooler in front of the radiator. Did toyota bypass the radiator on these or does the tranny fluid go through the radiator and then the cooler?