White smoke! Help!

Sounds like oil then. I've had plenty of oil smoke in the cab of my taco as a result of turbo tinkering.. Also make sure nothing has wriggled lose and is burning up against the exhaust manifold(s), that'll smell kinda like burnt popcorn.
Coolant should smell sweet.

 

Agree, definitely sounds more like oil than coolant smoke to me.

 

Hey there. I finally got these heads pulled. It was kind of a bitch. worsethanchiggers makes it look easy. The exhaust bolts were all stuck and I rounded off two of those 12 pointed head bolts and had to find a bolt extractor kit to get them out. Anyways, the biggest things I noticed when I pulled the heads was a good sized pool of coolant on top of cylinder 5 and a noticeable pool of oil on top of cylinder three. I was wondering if those both could be attributed to a bad head gasket and could explain the smoke out the tailpipe. I'm just hoping I don't have a failing cylinder ring. I can get the heads cleaned and decked for about 230 for the pair. Should I just go ahead and do that and then change the gaskets and put everything back together or should I dig deeper? I don't want to put everything back together to find I haven't solved the problem.

Also! I checked out the rust and I have seen posts on here of people boxing in and fixing much worse rust than my frame has currently. I'm thinking about going ahead and attacking that before this winter. I will grind down, and cut out then box in spots where the rust is dug in and then coat the whole frame in something. That is, if I get the truck running.

P.s. just wanted to thank everybody on here. Tacoma world has been super damn helpful the whole time I've owned this truck.

 

After removing the head, were you able to see on the gasket where the coolant was getting into the cylinders?

 

If so, I'd say yeah and I'd feel confident in buttoning it back up

 

I would follow up with what cruiser guy asked. As long as there's proof the oil came from outside the sleeve, I think you're fine with a decking and gasket replacement. $230 seems a tad high; I was quoted $80 for a single 4 banger head about a year ago.

 

Did you do a compression test before pulling the heads?

 

I did not. I asked a shop to do one. He did some kind of pressurization test and said everything looked fine. I don't know that he knew what he was doing. I will definitely be doing my own compression tests from here on out.

 

Have the head shop take a look at the head gasgets . That might give you the answer .

 

That test is meh. I had a neg turkey baster test, but for sure with boroscope they saw coolant on my cyl 3 plug. Im replacing my head and hg rn on the 4 cyl and itll be $2760 when im done. Best of luck OP, by far the shittiest thing besides full engine or tranny to do on the trucks.


Im at 125k miles too rn. It could be worse

 

Ask someone to stick a camera in. My cyl 3 compression came up 118 psi versus 160 psi in cyl 2, but my block test was negative

 

lemme guess, the shop said they'd do you a favor and take it off your hands for $500...

 

Replacing the whole head?

 

Yup, new oem hg and entire head from toyota. They offered me a reman'd one but for 500 dollars cheaper but id prefer to spend more for the peace of mind. I only wanna do this once and do it right

 

Could you not deck the old one?

 

Might have been able to but im having a guy at firestone do it all to put on their cc. I dont have days to waste pulling a head to run to a head shop. Especially wont do it in our az heat either without a garage which i dont have.

 

Having one guy do the head, hg, coolant flush, valve clearancing, and theyre gonna do my plugs too. Ive been chasing my missfire for months thru the plugs, coil, and finally tinkered with injectors

 

Update! I thought some of you might be glad to hear that the head gasket and timing belt replaced and the truck is running better than when I bought it! 245,000 miles and counting!

 

Glad to hear it OP. I’m curious what “oil ring” the mechanics diagnosed as being bad and if there was a crack in the head or block the you’d lose pressure if you tested it. Idk all’s well it sounds like now.

 

I think the mechanic I took it to was just wrong. The oil was leaking into the heads through bad valve seats, and a significant amount of coolant was leaking through the head gasket, which is why I was getting such thick smoke. It was coolant and oil burning.