Blew the head gasket today

loko ino

loko ino

New member
Was driving home from work and thought I smelled something burning.I got home and checked under the hood, didn't see anything unusual. Went inside and came back out 20 mins later to run to store and when I started the car it blew white smoke...a lot of white smoke. Would not even idle right. Checked radiator and it is way low and gurgling when I goose the accelerator. Luckily no water in the oil, called a mechanic buddy and we are gonna fix it over the weekend. Thank God for good friends cause the shop said it woulda cost me $1500-2000 fix due to heads having to be milled to even them out.
So we are going to get the heads machined but I wanted to know if the gasket kits sold on eBay are good to go. And the timing belt with water pump kits. Here is what I was looking at:
Timing Belt Tensioner Kit GMB Water Pump 93 95 Toyota 4Runner T100 Pickup 3VZE | eBay

Multi Layered Steel MLS Full Gasket Set Head Bolts 3 0 3VZE Toyota T100 Pickup | eBay

Both these come out to a few hundred less than buying local at O'Reilly's.
anything I should be getting while it's all taken apart? Might as what I can so this doesn't happen again for a long while.

Thanks for the insight.
 
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I believe rockauto has full kits for 150ish.

The heads might not need to be machined. The FSM tells you how to check them.

Nows a good time to do the waterpump and timing belt too while your in there.
 
Hyde802 said:
I believe rockauto has full kits for 150ish.

The heads might not need to be machined. The FSM tells you how to check them.

Nows a good time to do the waterpump and timing belt too while your in there.
Click to expand...

Definitely doing the water pump and timing belt at the same time.

are the ebay kits not a good deal?
 
Do you know when the last time the head gasket was changed in it? Just curious as to how much time has passed.
 
Well got it all pulled apart yesterday...looks like someone had over torqued the heads and smashed the hell out of the gaskets. Toyota says campaign was done on it in 98 but at some point PO did a crap job replacing, no idea when. There was some sealant in there also, like it had been leaking a bit ago. And the timing belt..oh crap did that look bad. Wish I had pics of it, it was cracked all to hell. I am excited to see how well she is gonna run after this. New plugs, cap, rotor along with PCV hose (old one broke) and Pcv going in too. My buddy says internals look goo all things considered. Heads going to machine shop tomorrow, hope nothing bad there.
 
Heads are good!
Parts should be here tomorrow..so should be assembling Tuesday once I get that PCV hose and some red coolant from dealership.
 
Parts are in!
Gonna start putting her back together tonight, will take a few days since we both work during the day.
 
Heads back together and in the truck. Adjusting the valves took my buddy an hour and some grinding on the shims. but not too bad according to how he tells it.
Master mechanics make all this crap look easy. We have only used the FSM for torque specs and that's it.
More work tonight if my knock sensor pig tail comes in today.
 
Sooo..ebay is not always the best option for parts.
Knock sensor pigtail was cheap on there for a genuine Toyota part, $11 and with shipping of $5 I am surely getting a great deal paying $16 vs the dealer right? Especially since the sensor is like $180 at the dealer...the pigtail must be a lot...

WRONG.
Since they didnt ship my part until today even though I ordered last week thinking that even with holiday it would be here today since it is coming from OR but come to find out nope..shipped today, so I called the dealer desperate to pay anything. Turns out the part is $16.50 at dealer....

*sigh*
 
Got her all back together last night after a marathon mechanic-ing session, fired her up and she sounds smooth..for about 10 mins..then she got REALLY loud..like knock loud. Buddy could not figure it out..everything look good inside..then he noticed the bottom of the engine was cool even though the top was obvisouly heating up. Looks like the thermostat I put in is not working..so now I have to swap that out..sheesh. At least it does not look like any bad damage anymore. We let the engine cool for about 30 mins and she started right up and sounded really good again..so we shut it off and will put in new thermo and adjust timing tonight, then I should be all good. Except he noticed I need new boots while he was under the truck..
 
All done..finally!
Had major ari bubbles in the cooling system and those took a bit to workout, but she is running. The loud ticking I have still, but now I know those are the fuel rails and injectors cause the valves are all good. We did a compression test and she held good compression. Set timing and I have to lower the idle a little cause it is hovering at 1k instead of 800 but man she runs good now, has lots more pep with new wires, plugs, cap, and rotor.
Thanks for everyones comments, the suggestions really helped. Hopefully I get another 100k out of her before anything bad like this happens again.

Break down of work:
Heads re-surfaced
valve clearance checked and adjusted
new head gaskets
new timing belt
new water pump
all new bearings with the timing belt
new thermo
all new PS, AC, and alt belt
new red coolant - pentefrost
new oil
new plugs
new wires
new cap
new rotor
 
Side note..my factory alarm now works..
Gotta find the manual I had for it off the web to figure out how to disable again until I get a FOB for it. Goes off if I open door for 1min and not put key in..kinda sucks...lol
 
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