I bought a 2000 SR5 with high mileage and spent a lot of money, time and effort to make it reliable. Everything from seals and bearings to a diff breather. I read all the threads about problem areas and thought it was near-bulletproof after all my work. But the other day one of the nipples broke off the heater water valve on the firewall and dumped all my coolant. I had lots of water and tried to limp home, but eventually it overheated, started pinging and gave me a CEL. I was only 34 miles from home but the tow still cost me almost $500. And now the engine is pumping bubbles out the radiator and the coolant is contaminated. I'm working to pull the heads and hopefully there are no cracks. This could really get expensive due to machining possible head warpage, or cracks requiring replacement heads.
So I want to share my story so that others will not be caught out by this defect in waiting. The valve body is plastic and it will break at some point. Mine just disintegrated. With a pressurized system it's hard to plug. I should have just stopped, but better yet, I should have just replaced the darn thing when I was doing everything else.
So I want to share my story so that others will not be caught out by this defect in waiting. The valve body is plastic and it will break at some point. Mine just disintegrated. With a pressurized system it's hard to plug. I should have just stopped, but better yet, I should have just replaced the darn thing when I was doing everything else.
