Overheating, blown radiator, other issues?

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BeavStu

New member
So yesterday I was driving up to the mountains to go skiiing. Roads were hard packed snow and ice, so I had 4wd engaged, was concentrating on the road. All of a sudden I look down and the temp gauge is 3/4 of the way to the top! Oh shit. I pull over and turn off the engine. Get out and inspect what I can. No signs of pink milkshake, hoses look fine, oil cap looks good too. Only thing Is steam is coming out of the coolant overflow tank. No signs of spattered fluids.

Ultimately since I’m on the side of a mountain pass road with no phone service. I decide to to turn around and roll in neutral down the road till I can get somewhere with phone service and a safe place to stop. Had to do a little driving with the heat creeping up a little but never got as high as it had originally and never in the red.

Anyways, got to a good spot. Called a tow truck. Took it to nearest repair shop. Did pressure test on radiator and found the leak. Advised putting stop leak in and refill coolant so I could get home. He put universal gold coolant in that he said mixes safely with everything.

Car drives fine afterwards. Smooth and everything. Ordered new radiator already because I consider the stop leak a temporary band aid. Plan is to do a full flush with distilled water to get out the stop leak junk, gold coolant and then install new radiator and refill with Toyota red coolant.

My question is what is the likelihood I warped a head or blew a head gasket? Would those symptoms show up right away? Or do they take time to develop? As I said everything is operating like normal right now, I’m just paranoid. Or is there anything else I need to be concerned about or that I should replace at the same time?

Overall irritated that I hadn’t noticed the leak ahead of time. As I try really hard to take good care of my truck. Appreciate the help and input. Sorry for the long story. It’s a 2002 4wd SR5 with 181k. Thanks.


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its a gamble. Some overheat and have issues right away, some over heat and have no issues. Just depends on how overheated and for how long.
a leak down test will tell you a lot
 
I'm sure you are fine. In my experience, if your rig only got up to 3/4 hot on the gauge, you are still a good ways from truly over heating. Be glad you caught it when you did ! But sounds like you are fine ..
 
Going forward, you can get yourself an Ultraguage for $80 and set a coolant temp alarm. That way it will never creep up on you again without you being aware and you will catch problems earlier.
 
BeavStu said:
So yesterday I was driving up to the mountains to go skiiing. Roads were hard packed snow and ice, so I had 4wd engaged, was concentrating on the road. All of a sudden I look down and the temp gauge is 3/4 of the way to the top! Oh shit. I pull over and turn off the engine. Get out and inspect what I can. No signs of pink milkshake, hoses look fine, oil cap looks good too. Only thing Is steam is coming out of the coolant overflow tank. No signs of spattered fluids.

Ultimately since I’m on the side of a mountain pass road with no phone service. I decide to to turn around and roll in neutral down the road till I can get somewhere with phone service and a safe place to stop. Had to do a little driving with the heat creeping up a little but never got as high as it had originally and never in the red.

Anyways, got to a good spot. Called a tow truck. Took it to nearest repair shop. Did pressure test on radiator and found the leak. Advised putting stop leak in and refill coolant so I could get home. He put universal gold coolant in that he said mixes safely with everything.

Car drives fine afterwards. Smooth and everything. Ordered new radiator already because I consider the stop leak a temporary band aid. Plan is to do a full flush with distilled water to get out the stop leak junk, gold coolant and then install new radiator and refill with Toyota red coolant.

My question is what is the likelihood I warped a head or blew a head gasket? Would those symptoms show up right away? Or do they take time to develop? As I said everything is operating like normal right now, I’m just paranoid. Or is there anything else I need to be concerned about or that I should replace at the same time?

Overall irritated that I hadn’t noticed the leak ahead of time. As I try really hard to take good care of my truck. Appreciate the help and input. Sorry for the long story. It’s a 2002 4wd SR5 with 181k. Thanks.


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Click to expand...

The 3.4l motor is'pretty tough little engine. replace the radiator and drive it. you might have caught the overheating in time and avoided serious damage but be aware and lookout for white smoke,sweet smell from tail pipe, misfires'' coolant losss' and engine stumbling etc
 
Kanoe said:
Going forward, you can get yourself an Ultraguage for $80 and set a coolant temp alarm. That way it will never creep up on you again without you being aware and you will catch problems earlier.
Click to expand...


Good idea, thanks! I’ve had my eye on one for awhile now, this is a good excuse to finally go for it. Do you have to manually set what temp you want the alarm at? If so, what is recommended?

I installed an external tranny cooler in series with the radiator over the summer prior to moving/driving across country. In hindsight, I knew the radiator was due to be replaced but I thought I had time to spare.


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BeavStu said:
Good idea, thanks! I’ve had my eye on one for awhile now, this is a good excuse to finally go for it. Do you have to manually set what temp you want the alarm at? If so, what is recommended?
Click to expand...

Yes. You can turn the alarms on and off for many of the parameters it measures and you set the alarm points.

You just see where your 4runner runs normally and then set the alarm point a few degrees above that. The hottest temps will occur when you have just shut down for a few minutes and restarted (heat soak) so I go just high enough that it doesn't trip on restart too often.

I run at 83 (182) normally with OEM cooling system and set the alarm at 92 (197.6). This spread does not even register on the factory gauge.
 
Picked up new oem radiator at the post office yesterday and installed it after dinner.

Still running good overall since the incident last Friday. Headed back to a redo this weekend.

Definitely leaning towards buying an ultra gauge.


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I also overheated my engine on a long climb with a faulty fan and got about 3/4 of the way up. I had a bluetooth reader and it read 230*. Pretty hot but it was only for a short time and did not harm my engine. I'm guessing you were around that same temperature.
 
T4R2014 said:
Flush that stopleak crap out.
Click to expand...



Had originally planned to do. But due to time constraints, an incoming winter storm and the fact that I am living in an apartment and had to do the repair in the parking lot in below freezing temps, I opted to just do a simple replacement and no flush so I could have peace of mind of no longer having a band aid on but a true fix.


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I'm running a Ultra Gauge and able to set alarms is a really nice feature.
I think Torque Pro is a nice app and very battery intensive on the phone. Yes you could run a charging cable to the phone. Being able to hide the wire nicely would be hard.
Your better off doing a clean install with a Scan Gauge or an Ultra Gauge.
 
BeavStu said:
Had originally planned to do. But due to time constraints, an incoming winter storm and the fact that I am living in an apartment and had to do the repair in the parking lot in below freezing temps, I opted to just do a simple replacement and no flush so I could have peace of mind of no longer having a band aid on but a true fix.


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Click to expand...



Wow, I need to go back to school. That was a heck of a run off sentence...


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I had a very similar issue on my '98 in the snow as well... Ended up being the radiator cap. the one that had been on the truck for 20 yrs had a worn rubber seal allowing the system to lose pressure.

Replaced the cap about a year ago and no issues since.
 
norcalassassin said:
I had a very similar issue on my '98 in the snow as well... Ended up being the radiator cap. the one that had been on the truck for 20 yrs had a worn rubber seal allowing the system to lose pressure.



Replaced the cap about a year ago and no issues since.
Click to expand...



I need to replace mine as well. I was wrong to assume that a new radiator would come with a new cap.


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Mysterious overheating 2001 4Runner

I have had a similar prob with my 4Runner. Overheating on long uphill climbs (not necessarily steep) and/or after engine has been running at least an hour at highway speeds. Has happened twice while on the highway. Both times truck was not particularly overloaded or towing, but was full with luggage and 3 kids. Truck is 2001 with 102K miles.

Three separate mechanics (two Toyota dealers, one independent) have not found the problem. Did pressure test, which showed no leaks.

Last incident, it began to overheat while traveling to NY; luckily found nearby Toyota dealer; opened the hood and found overflow tank overflowing and boiling over but no actual leaks. In that instance, after pressure test, dealer speculated old radiator cap had some brittle rubber parts that fell down into radiator and blocked something, though he was only speculating; changed cap anyway and flushed system. Dealer also ruled out blown head gasket. We thought problem was resolved, got back on the road, and had gone about 30 miles when temp indicator started moving up near the red again. I slowed down, turned around and limped back home (about 75 miles).

The truck runs all day around town without a trace of overheating. Last week I purposely took it alone on a 90-minute drive up the highway to try to replicate overheating, but it didn't happen. However, I had no pax/luggage and the day wasn't very hot.

Radiator was replaced in 2016; coolant hose and thermostat less than a year ago; water pump reportedly replaced in '03. I am stumped, but i know very little about engines. The fact that three mechanics, including Toyota, can't figure it out, is more concerning. Sorry for the long post. Any thoughts?
 
ED2001T4R said:
I have had a similar prob with my 4Runner. Overheating on long uphill climbs (not necessarily steep) and/or after engine has been running at least an hour at highway speeds. Has happened twice while on the highway. Both times truck was not particularly overloaded or towing, but was full with luggage and 3 kids. Truck is 2001 with 102K miles.

Three separate mechanics (two Toyota dealers, one independent) have not found the problem. Did pressure test, which showed no leaks.

Last incident, it began to overheat while traveling to NY; luckily found nearby Toyota dealer; opened the hood and found overflow tank overflowing and boiling over but no actual leaks. In that instance, after pressure test, dealer speculated old radiator cap had some brittle rubber parts that fell down into radiator and blocked something, though he was only speculating; changed cap anyway and flushed system. Dealer also ruled out blown head gasket. We thought problem was resolved, got back on the road, and had gone about 30 miles when temp indicator started moving up near the red again. I slowed down, turned around and limped back home (about 75 miles).

The truck runs all day around town without a trace of overheating. Last week I purposely took it alone on a 90-minute drive up the highway to try to replicate overheating, but it didn't happen. However, I had no pax/luggage and the day wasn't very hot.

Radiator was replaced in 2016; coolant hose and thermostat less than a year ago; water pump reportedly replaced in '03. I am stumped, but i know very little about engines. The fact that three mechanics, including Toyota, can't figure it out, is more concerning. Sorry for the long post. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Check your fan clutch, this happened to me on my Tacoma a few years back it drives fine around town but under load or highway speeds the fan cant move enough air to keep it from over heating.
 
MK_98 said:
Check your fan clutch, this happened to me on my Tacoma a few years back it drives fine around town but under load or highway speeds the fan cant move enough air to keep it from over heating.
Click to expand...

Around town this would definitely affect it but at highways speeds the air moving outside would quickly overcome whatever air the fan could move. So overheating at highway speeds is not a fan clutch issue. Seeing that he hasn't had the water pump replaced in 16 years, I'm saying the bearings in the water pump have gone bad and it isn't moving the coolant like it should. The cooling system is very simple, it's literally just radiator, hoses, water pump, thermostat and the coolant itself. That's it. Water pump is the only one he hasn't replaced.
 
When these engines are starting to warm up on a long climb. If your not milk shaking, loosing coolant. I would try the following:


Turn your heaters on full blast hot air and see if the temperature starts dropping. If it does. Then suspect the following few things.

1) radiator fins dirty or clogged with mud

2) radiator cap not pressurizing your coolant.

3) Theromstat starting to intermittently stick. [ seen this since the 1980s and very common]

4) Water pumps mostly start spewing coolant fluid when their bearings fail. However, not always. They mostly do get noisy when starting to go as well.


5) I would also look at the internal fins in the radiator [ through the cap ] making sure deposits are not building up. This is extremely rare these days but if someone exchanged the antifreeze and used very crappy water the radiator might be clogged with deposits.

Hope this helps. :]

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