Severe Issue!

[SuperRedMR2]

Was thrashing the car earlier, not gonna lie, temp gauge went up to max, then half way then max again. Decided it be sensible to be towed to my mates.

Reservoir bottle up the max, radiator cap empty, visual inspection of radiator = tom tucked.

A lot of coolant muck around cylinder no. 4

Gonna whip the head off tomorrow, purchase a rad and head gasket set, get head skimmed if necessary, but anyone else got any advice? reply asap!

[smokeejoe]

im no expert but maybe drop the oil see if the coolant got in the cylinders or if it just escaped from the rad, compression test would probably be a good idea to

[CecilWard]

Oil pressure?

Any weird accompanying noises? Presumably not or you would have said so.

[PW@Woodsport]

get head skimmed if necessary, but anyone else got any advice? reply asap!

It's seldom the head on a Mk1 that needs the skimming, the block corrodes very badly around (you guessed it) number 4 cylinder, inspect your block thoroughly in this area, it has killed many a 4a-ge.

[elbon50]

im no expert but maybe drop the oil see if the coolant got in the cylinders or if it just escaped from the rad, compression test would probably be a good idea to

You could try dipping your engine oil first Alex

See if the level as risen (due to water getting in

Peter

[PW@Woodsport]

The 4a-ge very rarely fails between coolant and oil galleries though, the gasket usually fails between cylinder bore and coolant jacket around No.4, (as indicated by the coolant breach in that area) so there won't be any oil level increase in that case.

If it has gone between bore and coolant jacket just take the cap off and run the engine while pouring coolant into it, it will probably erupt like Vesuvius if the gasket is gone that badly.

[SuperRedMR2]

The radiator is mullered as well which we believe has caused the head to go. There is a leak at the left hand bottom corner of the rad.

The towing eye has also ripped off the bumper bar as well as result of being towed back to my mates but that'll be welded at work.

Does anyone know where I can get a head gasket set and radiator for monday afternoon? Need some head bolts too!

The oil pressure was fine, the oil has no coolant in it from what we saw last night.

Temp gauge went off the scale and I could only pull over a few mins after this happened so god knows what sort of damage its done.

There is some crusty coolant evidence at the back of the block on no.4 cylinder so we suspect its gone there.

[PW@Woodsport]

Just for info, the head gasket doesn't go as a result of the radiator breach, it's the other way around, your head gasket failure will have over-pressurized the system and burst it at its weakest point, in this case the radiator.

[kevin..in]

too late now but for everyone elses info, there is a towing eye underneath the front of the car, using this instead of the visible but more often than not rotted out one on the bumper RF bar will save your front end being ripped of by towing
Oh and never appologise for giving a MK1 a thrashing, thats what they're for!

[SuperRedMR2]

Was doing very high speeds, then poodling along at 40 it overheated.

Where can I get head bolts from?

[Lauren]

Have you tried Nissan?









Buy your parts from Toyota.

If you want to use cheap ebay gasket sets, please at least use a Toyota head gasket.

Ditto Toyota for head bolts.

[PW@Woodsport]

Lauren there are perfectly good quality spurious suppliers out there for this kind of thing, why pay well over the odds at Toyota if the quality is the same?

I use Payen gaskets (recognized as the best), others like Blueprint and QH also offer fantastic quality but at a fraction of the price. Gates for timing belts, Wix oil filters, all brilliant.

It's like the old Forlife scam, half of that is tapwater, no ta!

As a professional engine builder i can highly recommend Payen gaskets, i only go to Toyota for the absolute essentials that can't be bought elsewhere.

[Lauren]

Really?

I used a Bluprint water pump before. The quality is most definitely not the same and resulted in premature failure.

I've generally found using OEM parts results in a reliable car and I admit, for my car, keeping that kind of originality is important.

[kevin..in]

i'm with paul on this, well sourced aftermarket parts are often better quality than oem, gates timing belts are oem parts for many manufacturers anyway, but buying one in a gates box rather than from a manufacturers main dealer will give you a good saving, coolantwise i use silkolene long life I happen to know that silkolene here in stoke supply a large japanese manufacturer nearby with all its fluids, so why should i buy from the main dealer when i can get the exact same fluids for next to nothing eleswhere
no brainer really, oh and incase anyone wants to jump in with aftermarket stuff will be made in china so therfore crap, look closely at you genuine toyota stuff i have bought gen. oil filters bearing the legend "made in china"!

[PW@Woodsport]

Really?

I used a Bluprint water pump before. The quality is most definitely not the same and resulted in premature failure.

I've generally found using OEM parts results in a reliable car and I admit, for my car, keeping that kind of originality is important.

That's one pump, you can't make a sweeping judgement like that, i've been fitting Blueprint pumps for 15 years and never had a single failure at a rate of 2 per month on average. So that's 24 pumps per year x15, which is around 350 water pumps in my career (roughly)... so either yours wasn't installed correctly or suffered premature failure due to an overtight belt etc.

Same with Payen gaskets, spurious headbolts and all other consumables, never had an issue.

Do you get Toyota to do all of the work on the car as well? Servicing, repairs etc?

In the motor trade it's an "inhouse" joke that people that use main dealers for all their parts and servicing don't really know much better and i could write a book on their diagnostic ability, mainly because we end up with a lot of their "unfixable" cars which are incorrectly diagnosed.

My advice to the OP would be to avoid using Toyota for parts unless you really have to. By the same token avoid Ebay stuff, stick with well known brands from your local motor factors and you can't go far wrong, you'll save a lot of money too, as Kevin says a lot of Toyota stuff is just rebranded anyway but costs you double.

[kevin..in]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-TOYOT ... 53ea19bfbd
mmmmmm want to be seen with one of these?

[Lauren]

That's one pump, you can't make a sweeping judgement like that, i've been fitting Blueprint pumps for 15 years and never had a single failure at a rate of 2 per month on average. So that's 24 pumps per year x15, which is around 350 water pumps in my career (roughly)... so either yours wasn't installed correctly or suffered premature failure due to an overtight belt etc.

Actually it failed because the impeller blades corroded to nothing because unlike the Toyota one (which we replaced it with) they were not made of brass. That was a Bluprint pump.

[PW@Woodsport]

With the correct mixture of Ethylene Glycol in the system the impellor blades should last many many years, for yours to corrode in a short period of time it must have been a very weak mixture.

Like i said, fitted over 350 pumps in my time, not one of them a Toyota pump and never had an issue.

[Lauren]

Probably. It was on a car I bought where the water pump failed. I agree that the correct coolant mix was the issue here, though the Toyota one would not be affected by a weak glycol mix. There was an obvious quality difference though between the Bluprint and Toyota one, when we examined them.

[SuperRedMR2]

Got the head off, no obvious breach.

alot of coolant in cylinder no.1

poor compression on cylinder no.3 (tested previously).

Just cleaning up block and head.