SAC-CA-Runner
New member
I blew up my V8 less than a mile from Rachel, NV on the Extraterrestrial Highway on the 2nd day of a 2 week offroading trip last year. Never bothered to hook up my BT code reader and Torque app. Was going up a hill and CEL came on. Truck felt fine and didn't notice anything. Get to the top of the hill and go cruising down into the valley and the truck just dies. No other lights, temperature gauges rising, etc. Coast over to the side of the road with no power. All of a sudden I see the steam. I think it's a fire so I grab my fire extinguisher, pop the hood but don't open it, look under the car for flames or anything resembling a fire or smell and nothing. So open the hood VERY slowly and the small return hose on the radiator to the coolant reservoir is spewing fluid everywhere. My skids are covered. Wheel wells covered. Under hood insulator is toasted with coolant and heat. Fill with some water and nothing. Truck won't start. DIA on side of road. Soooooo, call AAA. Sit on edge of road and drink beers. 5 people pass in 2.5 hours of waiting. Thennnn, 2.5 hours to the Vegas Toyota dealer where the next day they want to charge me to pull timing covers off, etc. and do a $7K motor swap. Told them to pound sand and rented a Uhaul truck and trailer and winched it up and drove it back to NorCal.
Found a motor with 125K on it. Replaced EVERYTHING on it and added some goodies (sssshhhhh) and dropped it in. The reason...dumb previous owner used fix-a-leak in the radiator causing it to clog and blow out all my coolant. If it was the BIG hose I would have caught it because of the steam. If I had my BT hooked up I would have seen low coolant. It was the small hose and the temp gauge never budged and the tech at Toyota said it was because the steam kept it at a certain temp. Not sure I believe that but whatever. Cooked it so bad the knock sensors were melted to the block.
But just got back from a 2.5 week trip I was SUPPOSED to do last year thru Eastern Sierra, Grand Canyon, Moab, CO Mtns and not a single hiccup. No way I would let this truck go. 200K on the body and engine is around 150K now I think. Still love it.
Do I win?
Found a motor with 125K on it. Replaced EVERYTHING on it and added some goodies (sssshhhhh) and dropped it in. The reason...dumb previous owner used fix-a-leak in the radiator causing it to clog and blow out all my coolant. If it was the BIG hose I would have caught it because of the steam. If I had my BT hooked up I would have seen low coolant. It was the small hose and the temp gauge never budged and the tech at Toyota said it was because the steam kept it at a certain temp. Not sure I believe that but whatever. Cooked it so bad the knock sensors were melted to the block.
But just got back from a 2.5 week trip I was SUPPOSED to do last year thru Eastern Sierra, Grand Canyon, Moab, CO Mtns and not a single hiccup. No way I would let this truck go. 200K on the body and engine is around 150K now I think. Still love it.
Do I win?
