Overheating 3SGTE

[rollaholic]

if you have good circulation - top and bottom hoses, heater hoses all very close in temp (too hot to touch for long) - rad good and hot across its core, with the fans clicking in and out at idle - thats a pretty good indication that everything is doing its job.

have you checked the plugs? (looking for brown tips, sign that you are burning water)

one thing i have done occasionally with cars that are problematic to bleed is to take out the little breather bobble in the thermostat and drill a bigger hole through there. although, i havent looked at a 3S in a while - dont they have a little bleed screw on the thermo housing?

depending on how your heater lines are routed you want to make good and sure you have the exact right thermostat for the vehicle - though you would expect a TRD one to be suitable. some thermostats have a second smaller plate on the back of them to control flow through the heater hoses, if its not present (you can get thermos that fit in the gap but dont have the smaller plate) then you can end up with flow problems.

[Quint]

Do a leak down test.

[strx7]

as i said the one and only symptom is the overflow and the loss of coolant through overflow, another thing, when its cold theres vacuum in the upper hose, so its spitting out coolant as usuall but not taking it back??

Sure sounds like air stuck in the system somewhere.
Pull the thermostat out, drill some little holes in it near the edge, 3 or 4 3 or 3.5mm holes should be sufficient, fit the thermostat back in making sure those holes at in the 12 oclock position.

That is how I ended up bleeding my race car cause i couldn't get the air out. i put it down to having bypassed the heater but perhaps its just 3SGTE/3SGE's. i recall someone saying that the corona NZ touring cars were problematic when it came to bleeding them.

[CAMB01]

ive driven the car over 70,000 under my ownership, between then and now of hard driving, im not sure that a BHG would have lasted so long and still to this day make good power...

You shouldnt have a noticable power loss or if any at all with a blown headgasket.
ive seen cars drive for longer with mildly blown headgaskets.

[rollaholic]

ive driven the car over 70,000 under my ownership, between then and now of hard driving, im not sure that a BHG would have lasted so long and still to this day make good power...

You shouldnt have a noticable power loss or if any at all with a blown headgasket.
ive seen cars drive for longer with mildly blown headgaskets.

bit of water in the combustion chamber might even help ameliorate the dreaded 3S pink

if you listen to MAGN1T every second car on the road has a BHG, so just goes to show.

[gt4dude]

it was a direct replacement trd stat, i was also running a trd 1.3 cap -- would that have helped or made it worse?

[rollaholic]

does it behave like this at idle? if its got an airlock chances are the thermostat wont open, the bottom hose will stay cool and it will push water out the top as it over heats.

if you have good circulation - top and bottom hoses, heater hoses all very close in temp (too hot to touch for long) - rad good and hot across its core, with the fans clicking in and out at idle - thats a pretty good indication that everything is doing its job.

have you checked the plugs?

have you checked the plugs? (looking for brown tips, sign that you are burning water)

[allencr]

...only symptom is the overflow and the loss of coolant through overflow, another thing, when its cold theres vacuum in the upper hose, so its spitting out coolant as usuall but not taking it back??
****
i was also running a trd 1.3 cap -- would that have helped or made it worse?

Overheating is from restricted flow - coolant and/or air, coolant loss from leak/s or BHG.
There should never be observable vacuum(collapsed hose?) in the cooling system, if there is, the cap is NFG.

Yes, a 1.3 cap will stress that shitty plastic(& everything else) even more, causing it to fail sooner.

[BZG Wagon]

Has the thermostat been installed the right way up? There's a small vent at the top of the thermostat to vent air which needs to be the right way up.

A lot of other good suggestions on here. Hopefully you find the cause.

[sergei]

It takes 5min to remove thermostat, and try without. This way you can eliminate thermostat.

There is an easy way to check the thermostat operation: boil it in cooking pot and see if it fully opens before the water boils (bonus points for using wife's/gf's cooking thermometer and covering it in grease , and then getting verbally assaulted).

[gt4dude]

definitely blown head gasket, theres no point putting my new radiator in ive got water out the tailpipe and steam and bubbles out the radiator lol

i took the thermostat out and ran it, the water circulates good on idle, i see it swirling well but when i rev it , everything just comes right up the top..

thanks everyone for chiming in, thanks for getting my hopes up i do atleast feel better having tried and observed for myself...


now at 203,xxx with its entire lifetime of overheating problems, would my best option be buying an imported low kms engine or risk opening pandoras box by taking my head off with the engine in the car?

it seems like the problems never end with my engine even with a resurfaced head and new head gasket im sure the next thing to go wrong will be right around the corner... its like cancer,

im sure theres corosion, if theres any narrow water jacket passages they are sure to be cracked, anything that can go wrong with an overheating BHG possibly neglected engine probably has gone wrong or is about to...

[AE82 FXGT]

Sorry to hear, went through a similar thing with my GTZ although I just got angry after trying to fix cooling issues 4 times that I ripped the motor out and rebuilt it, was perfect after that. 3s I imagine will be more involved than a 4a though.

If you want the most time efficient way, get a secondhand motor, if you want reliability at an extra cost rebuild your one or rebuild a secondhand one, that way you know it's in good nick.

Good luck either way.

[strx7]

IF you can find a 2nd hand st205 motor expect to pay $1500+ for it

[gt4dude]

could a st205 head gasket be changed in a garage without a hoist or engine lift?

if i can just undo everything under the hood i may just gradually pull it apart myself and send my head away and get a few more kms out of it

[Leon]

with a long history of cooking itself, I guess you'll be a bit worried that the head has gone soft ...

[rollaholic]

whatever the diagnosis its good to go through the process and eliminate stuff. sounds like ya learned a few things so some kind of silver lining at least

if you like the car and want to keep it, i would be tempted to try and find a 2nd hand engine for it with less km.

if you have had enough and want to get rid of it - and can do most of the work yourself - then replacing the HG may work out cheaper.

[Sick Puppy]

what are they waiting for? christmas??

Ah, I miss that game...

[CAMB01]

could a st205 head gasket be changed in a garage without a hoist or engine lift?

if i can just undo everything under the hood i may just gradually pull it apart myself and send my head away and get a few more kms out of it

Dropping the engine will be far easier and faster than trying to remove the head in place on a celica, especially a gt4.

[sergei]

definitely blown head gasket, theres no point putting my new radiator in ive got water out the tailpipe and steam and bubbles out the radiator lol

i took the thermostat out and ran it, the water circulates good on idle, i see it swirling well but when i rev it , everything just comes right up the top..

thanks everyone for chiming in, thanks for getting my hopes up i do atleast feel better having tried and observed for myself...


now at 203,xxx with its entire lifetime of overheating problems, would my best option be buying an imported low kms engine or risk opening pandoras box by taking my head off with the engine in the car?

it seems like the problems never end with my engine even with a resurfaced head and new head gasket im sure the next thing to go wrong will be right around the corner... its like cancer,

im sure theres corosion, if theres any narrow water jacket passages they are sure to be cracked, anything that can go wrong with an overheating BHG possibly neglected engine probably has gone wrong or is about to...

Just buy a low km imported engine, if you don't want mucking around with heads and what not. This way you also get fresh bottom end. You don't want surprises when you pull the head off to discover that pistons have pitting from detonation (which also causes the blown gaskets).

[sergei]

If that's any consolation my ST165 has BHG .
It is just bubbling at this stage...
I guess many years of kiwi maintenance schedule by previous owners has finally paid off.

Going to replace it in the engine bay...