Hey guys, Ive only had my 4runner a few months. It has never had overheating issues until yesterday. One of my hoses on the back of the engine near the temp sensor cracked and was spewing coolant everywhere. So today I fixed it no problem. Filled it back up with water until I could stop by the store and get coolant. Figured everything was good so I went for a drive. About 8 mins inti the drive my radiator blew up. Pretty nuts. Idk if I cracked something when replacing the line because I had to lay on my motor to replace the line or what. Anyone ever had this problem? New waterpump and tstat are on the motor and considering I never had problems until I replaced that line I couldnt imagine it be something preexisting I didnt know about.

I was having over heating issues back in august at 215k miles. Replaced the Tstat, new water pump, new coolant and was still having problems. A new radiator fixed it for me. Looks like your going to need one anyways so I'd give that a shot unless your worried about the new one blowing up..


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The top of the radiator is plastic and is a common failure point. If you have a lot of miles on your rig, it was probably due for a replacement anyway. However, if you were putting your body weight on the top of the radiator to get to that hose on the back of the engine, I can see how you could have accelerated it's demise by stressing the plastic and putting some micro cracks in it.

But, since you'll be needing to replace your radiator, I have a video that might help you out. And, this might be a good time to consider adding an external transmission cooler while you're doing it.



And, you may as well clean your AC Condenser while you're at it.

Kind of hard to see, but is that rust inside your radiator, or just the nasty dried-up remnants of your coolant?

Thanks for the replys. I am a little worried itll happen to a new radiator but Im about to go pick one up. Got the old one pulled out already. I think its probably a mix of rust and broken down old coolant.

Before you put new coolant in, be sure to do some flushes with distilled water and a flush chemical. Get whatever the hell that is out of there before contaminating new coolant.

Probably a good time to swap out the t-stat with an OEM one since you have the radiator out.

I had mine blowed up too. Replaced the rad and everything seems to be fine. The suggestions on here were that it was just the rad and it seems to be accurate. Previous owner had green coolant. I used the Toyota red! Go OEM!

Yep, it happens. Happened to me at 190k+. Just remember when you replace stat to position the jiggle valve at the six o'clock.

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