I spent the day going through and diagnosing my new 1998, and discovered that cylinder 6 has a headgasket leak. Using a leak down tester, all other cylinders maintained pressure, cylinder 6 immediately started bubbling out of the open radiator, proving the issue.

I’m planning to DIY it all, and have the time, room, and skill to do so, especially considering the wealth of information available.

Anyway, there’s the aforementioned headgasket leak, there’s an odd issue where I’ve got oil all throughout my intake, it’s pretty bad. I traced it back to the vacuum hose that connects to the rear of the valve cover on the drivers side, why would this be happening?

Some pics as well,

Imgur: The magic of the Internet


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Thoughts on this felpro headgasket kit at rock auto?

Seems to come with many things I’d want to replace on the top end.




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On a job like this I would only use the OEM head gasket straight from Toyota. Everything else I think would be good with aftermarket. Thats my take on that but I could be wrong.

I'm not familiar with engine rebuilding but are you planning to resurface both heads? I think getting both heads resurfaced by a machine shop can bump the compression up a bit more if the surface is not very smooth like it should.

I have felpro valve cover gaskets and it has been perfectly fine. Going for 2 years on it.

Yes, definitely taking the heads to a machine shop, they can deck the heads and inspect for cracks I wouldn’t be able to notice.


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Update on the truck, it’s partially disassembled, intake manifold is off! Getting close to removing the heads, haven’t touched the timing belt or cams yet.

Various stages of disassembly - Album on Imgur

Unfortunately the valley in the motor is disgusting, pooled oil, rat turds, and decade worth of dirt and grime. Also weirdly, I found some random things there too…

I can’t identify this, but when I removed the intake manifold, either this fell off the intake and into the coolant passage, or it was hiding in the valley and fell in there when I moved the intake. Or it dislodged itself from the inside of the motor.

Does anyone know what this is?
Random item in coolant passage - Album on Imgur

Here’s where I found it



Couple of annoyances, I lost the rearmost intake manifold nut somewhere, it came off, bounced around and was nowhere to be seen from again. I recovered the washer under the intake manifold. I also pulled one of the studs from the block. Is it weird there is coolant pooled at the bottom?

I also found these two random springs among the rat turds and grime, what the heck are these used for?

When a component is buried deep in the engine, go OEM. Bummer about your head gasket.

Change the knock sensor and its harness with OEM while your in there. The harness gets super brittle. I'd go OEM on the head gaskets too. I have a feeling the intake nut will show back up by the time you pull the heads off but I have no idea what the springs or mystery parts are though.

Random item looks like the bottom of a radiator cap. Hard to tell its actual size, though.

It’s pretty small, like a 1/2 inch in diameter

I stand by the Yota-Shop head replacement kit. I’ve used them 3 times with zero issues. Their site explains the head gasket material.

It comes with everything needed to replace the heads and that includes the knock sensor cable.


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Thanks! That looks like a solid bit of kit.

Also, while my credit card is out, PO had the water pump replaced at 196k miles and timing belt has 6000 miles on it. Can they be reused? I didn’t plan on removing the water pump if I could avoid it.


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I’d not touch what you don’t have to. I recompressed my timing belt tensioner and re-pinned it to remove the heads. That’s what I did on my 96 until I found the cylinder bad and causing my supposed head gasket leak.

If you don’t have an Asin water pump now is the time though.


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Guess all the know-it-all saying don't go with FEL-PRO, go with OEM, have never worked with fel-pro gaskets. Easy when it's not their own money.

These are top-notch. You won't have a problem with them if correctly used and installed. And I don't know about the OEM price, but you'll also probably pay a small fraction for all the material you've got there.

Go with them with peace of mind.

Those springs look like a heli coil repair part. Probably stripped something somewhere and fixed it. Wow, one day I’ll get that far into mine. Oem gaskets, seems smart.

Yeah, felpro has been around forever, I feel like their stuff should be reputable?


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