Blown headgasket-AGAIN!

[Petros]

Diving my daughters to school this moring the lower radiator hose blew off and I seriously overheated my engine. Reattaching the hose and filling it with water on the side of the highway resulted in big billowing mass of white steam, but amazingly it still ran!

Though I could not get very far, nor put much load on it without the temp going into the red zone on the temp gauge. I got one daughter to school barly on-time and had to call my wife to get my other daughter to her school (a half an hour late). I had to keep refilling it with water every 5 to 10 min.

Oh-well I guess I am in for another head gasket replacement. I even have a new head gasket at home I can put in tonight if I do not have any other damage. Hopefully the head is not warped and I did not do too much damage to anything else. It did get real hot, I did not even notice the temp unil the needle was pegged above the red zone.

The lower radiator hose was at fault. When I replaced it a few months back the auto parts store said they did not have one. They had one that was similar but an inch or two shorter. I thought it would work okay since there were so many bends in it. I was able to stretch it on around behind the power steering pump, though it barly reached and the hose clamps held it on okay, or so I thought. Oddly it gave me no trouble for about 4 months except a slight leak at the clamp next to the water pump (which I just corrected Saterday). But appearantly it then pulled it off the other end.

Bad luck. Lesson, do not run short hoses!

[Mattel]

sorry to hear it Petros. This is another lesson we can take to Africa with us. I'm going to check my hoses before I do anymore ong distance driving (just got back from a 3,600 km drive halfway across australia and back (but only half that in a Tercel, the rest in a Landcruiser).

Will speak to you soon about the Banjul trip.Matt

[jwk77pgf]

When I got my first tercel, 2 door hatchback but same engine, I had a radiator problem. I overheated that car about 30 times in 2 months before I finally put in a new radiator and fan switch sensor. Most of the time when I overheated it, it was pegged all the way out on the temp gage. No telling how many times it happened before I got it, because I bought it at an action already with the problems. I have to say I was extremely lucky, because it never even phased the engine at all. That car ran strong to about 200,000+ miles. Finally about 5 years later, it spun a couple of bearings when it was low on oil, but amazingly still ran fine, just sounded like someone poured rocks in the motor. I remember running that car about 30 miles to a shop to have the engine replaced. I was flying down the highway at about 75 miles an hour with bad bearings!! It was so loud it sounded like a jackhammer or something. The point to all this is that these are tough little engines. Maybe your replacement head gasket was defective or something, it shouldn't have blown again on one overheating. My other tercel, a 4wd wagon, has about 275,000 miles on it now. I take it to the beach every year and it's been well overheated a few times too. Anyway, good luck, I'm sure with a nother head gasket, it will be like new again.

[GTSSportCoupe]

Sorry to hear Petros! What a pain in the ass. I've had rad hoses pop off a few times on me. Luckly I noticed pretty quickly, and was able to shut the car off before damage. Hope your engine is ok for the most part.

[Petros]

I got it appart last night (only took me an hour to get the head off this time-I am getting good at it!). Block and bores look okay, but head was warped. I stripped it and spent 3 hours trying to hand surface it, but it still had over 0.005 of warp, gave on trying to do it by hand and took it to the machine shop this moring. It took about .010 cut to make it flat. Fortunatly it was not bad enough to have to align-bore the cam towers (badly warped ones you have to do this.

I hope to get it back to gether tonight.

[Typrus]

Heh... That stinks. And you were worried about compression before? Heh. What'll that put you at you think?

Sorry to hear it...