head gasket - does this oil look bad to you?

[dlb]

don't worry, this isn't for ron or reggie. my wife was driving her truck to work this morning and noticed billowing clouds of white smoke in her rear view mirror. she pulled over and said the smoke was also coming from the engine bay. i asked if she looked at the temp gauge at any point during this and she said no, she just pulled over and shut everything off. she said there was no loss of power or noticeable change in the feel of the vehicle, just the white smoke. i figured it was the head gasket and told her to have it towed home. i've taken a look and...

- there is a bit of milkshake residue on the top of the oil fill cap but nowhere else
- the compression is good (160-170 psi on all cylinders, slight oil residue on the first plug but not bad and the others were a good light brown)
- i drained the coolant from the rad and the block and there was almost none--there were about 2 liters when there are supposed to be 8.5 liters. i expected to see gobs of oil but there were none.
- i checked the engine oil on the dipstick and there was none so i started panicking. drained the oil and found about 2 liters when there is supposed to be about 4.5 liters. the oil doesn't look too bad to me but there are light brown swirls in it and, having never seen coolant mixed with oil, i thought i'd get your guys's opinions on whether it is contaminated and if it still looks like this is still a headgasket problem.

personally, i think she just overheated the engine by running so low on both oil and coolant simultaneously but the good compression and lack of oil/coolant contamination makes me think that it's not too bad. i want to try just refilling both the coolant and oil and seeing how it runs but like i said, i'm not sure since i've never dealt with this kind of problem.

here's the oil. thanks for your help!

[Petros]

oil looks normal for used oil. There might be a hose leaking coolant on to engine or exhaust manifold to cause all the steam, fill it up and drive it take a look. Fix the leak and you are likely fine. What kind of truck?

[dlb]

'91 toyota pickup, 22RE engine. it's a trooper but this time it's bad.

i filled both the coolant and oil back up and tried starting it. the engine laboured, finally started, ran real lousy. turned it off, pulled the plugs again and BLAH--first cylinder puked coolant everywhere. head gasket it is. luckily, i have a bud who is intimately familiar with this job on this particular engine and he said he'd be happy to work on it with me. unluckily, after doing all the van repairs i can't get it started and can't figure out why so although we have 4 vehicles, only 1 is currently running. i'm feeling a little more white trash than usual all of a sudden.

[Petros]

Coolant coming out of the spark plug hole is a good pretty good indicator it is the head gasket . I have rebuilt several the 20R engine (did one over a weekend, had the car running by Sunday night). I think the 22R is similar, not too bad a job, like most toyotas, it is straight forward.

A friend of mine back when I was in High School, also a "car guy", used to say he would find it a luxury not to have to own two spare cars. some things never change for me, even 35 years later.

Have fun with it.

[toughtercel]

look up as beautiful night stars with full moon .

[dlb]

i have another question. my dad pointed out that once i get the head off, i will have to carefully inspect the block for damage that may have been caused by the pistons trying to compress the coolant in the cylinder. he said that water does not compress so there is a danger that the block or a rod could be damaged. we let it run for maybe 20 seconds, any thoughts on how likely this damage is? i'm really un-psyched on the prospect of having to replace the whole engine.

[Petros]

Not very likley when you blow a head gasket. The cylinder has to have a lot of liquid in it for that to happen. The tendency is to push the water back through the blown head gasket. More likely if you drive into deep water and it goes down the intake.

Easy check: ONce the head is off, rotate the engine and compare if all the pistons come up to the same height in the cylinders (a dia indicator helps, but a feeler gauge can be used). And if there are no obvious holes in the piston tops, you are good.

[dlb]

cool, thanks peter.

[solarlord]

DAVID- just check the head is square and straight while you have it off the block- use a metal ruler or any perfectly square metal edge against the underside of the head where the gasket fits-DEC
PS shine light behind it when you do

[Highlander]

David- while you're in there, check the timing chain. the 20R and 22RE have a tendency to wear the inside of the timing cover when the chain stretches- the tensioner wears a groove into the timing cover which has a coolant jacket inside- It looks just a little worn when you peer down into the timing cover, but it'll spray coolant into the sump and look like a head gasket (I know you found oil in the cylinder, so it's for sure a head gasket)- Just a word to the wise when you have it apart

[dlb]

thanks highlander. i'm planning on doing the timing chain while it's apart anyway since this engine came from a wrecker and i have no idea just how old it is anyway but i will take a good look at the timing cover as well since you mentioned it.