Overheating corolla :(

[1hypo3]

All toyotas blow headgaskets sooner or later. Your time looks like it's up now.
Radiators only block because the owners keep putting water in there. That's the effect, not the cause. Check for bubbles coming out while it's idling.

Steve

Based on what experience? you have no idea mate

Based on over 30 years playing with cars and putting over 250,000 Ks on the same Toyota daily driver.
Most young guys got no idea......should have studied Chmistry and physics at school instead of only attending school in order to eat your lunch.
Any motor with an alloy head.......as soon as you start putting water into the cooling system, it's pretty much all over. Proper coolant only.

Steve

Owning the same toyota doesnt cut it mate , so you may of blown your head gasket in your car that you have owned for the last 250,000 ks to me that doesnt mean dick
Ive worked on toyotas for the last 10years mate EVERY DAY all day and i can tell you your above statement of every toyota blows a head gasket sooner or later is crap
oh by the way i did study physics and chemistry at school ( which doesnt mean dick anyway )

[sergei]

In blowing head gasket "field", a degree in Physics or Chemistry will not help.
professional Physicists and Chemists are one of the most clueless people when comes to engineering (hence they are not engineers).

MAGN1T - are you kiwi? If so I laugh at your school level of Chemistry and Physics, in NZ they teach your Chemistry in Physics in school at level that is 5 years behind than in Europe. For example, 16yo will be learning Chemistry at same level as 11yo in Europe.
My level (when I came to NZ as 16yo) got me through Physics in Uni, without learning anything new.

[rollaholic]

all cars blow head gaskets sooner or later, provided something else doesnt write them off first.

stating it like toyotas are more susceptible than other makes (which in my experience the opposite is true) is just misleading though,

which along with being deliberately inflammatory sadly seems to be the case with alot of magn1ts posts

which is a shame because he certainly seems to have plenty of experience in some areas

[MAGN1T]

Here's a pretty common situation.
So you go to the gas station to fill up, check the 'water' at the same time. It's down a bit, never mind top it up, keep driving. A couple of weeks later, same again, top it up. Using a bit more this time. Top it up again. Obviously a blown headgasket. Couldn't be bothered fixing it, I'll just pour in a bottle of chemiweld, that'll fix it for a couple of months so I can flick it off.
So, next persons problem.
In the meantime because the coolant is now so diluted with water and there's exhaust gasses dissolved it it under pressure. the coolant is acidic and the motor is acting like the cars battery, with electrodes of aluminium and iron bolted together. The water turns brown due to the acid eating the iron and aluminium and the brown gunge blocks the radiator.

So, it starts using water again.....never mind,the mechanic told me it's the radiator cap that's obviously not sealing properly. I'll put a stronger one on to hold it all in.Yay.
Next week it's overheating, heater hose popped, never mind, it must have been leaking all along and must have missed it. Mechanic ripped me off. I'll just shorten it cos it popped by the hose clip then fill it back up with water.
So next week....same again, overheating, another hose popped, ah well , they're all rotten, better replace them all. Cooked it a bit worse this time. Maybe this overheating has warped the head and made the headgasket blow?
So, next test drive/thrash, woops the top tank of the radiator has popped.Looks really gungy inside, that must have been the problem all along. Rubbish radiators, must have got brittle when it got hot. I know, I'll get an alloy one, that will be far stronger.
So, when you finally get around to changing the headgasket, you get the head cut, new gasket and it still wont seal because the block face has rusted and needs a cut too.
Then you finally get it running right and you find it's burning oil cos it got cooked too many times and the rings have no tension left.

The no brainer easy cheap test is to hook up a boost gauge to the cooling system and watch the pressure go up when you floor the gas pedal. A compression test is no good because they start leaking only at highest cylinder pressures and get slowly worse.A leakdown test might work but you'd need to use a few hundred PSI.
It's the same with any old pushrod motor that gets boost, it's really hard to seal the head properly, they'll leak on boost (real boost) but not leak any other time so it's hard to diagnose, unless you've been there before.

BTW my townace with 3Y, bought it with 69Ks or so on the clock but the numbers looked a bit out of line. It started using coolant with 80K or so on the clock, got fixed and started using coolant again with 270K or so on the clock. Nothing else really went wrong apart fronm the tail housing of the autobox that had to be fixed about 4 times.

Steve

[Mr Revhead]

so that happens to every toyota then?
so if your toyota over heats... it must be the head gasket! dont check the radiator! dont check the rad cap! dont check your thermostat! dont past go and collect $200!

shit. i better go buy a honda

[rollaholic]

for someone with experience leaping straight to the headgasket diagnosis is certainly feasible, though surely you would be arrogant in the extreme not to at least cover your basics. for the relative novice trying to learn a bit about cars (im sure you were like this once steve) ruling out the cheap and easy options in a methodical way first is the only way to go. particularly when diagnosing problems over the internet has its own set of issues

you can also pickup a headgasket with a teekay test.

[1hypo3]

Thats all good magn1t but my experience and training on a overheating problem on a "petrol" engine is to test the gasket/head as one of the last resorts. On a toyota diesel checking for bubbles in the cooling system is one of the first things i check on a overheating problem (cracked head).
But really i havent come across too many blown headgaskets on toyotas
i suppose the majorty of toyotas i come across are well serviced and dont show these sorts of problems , which really is the key.
But in the end i still strongly disagree in your comment "that all toyotas blow a headgaket sooner or later" but hey thats just my opinion.

Hayden

[tsoob]

+1 tk test first

[pc]

heaps

So what your really saying is that performing no basic maintainence on a car will f$%k it quicker

Did chemistry at high school teach you that?

[jondee86]

AND THE PRIZE FOR THE DUMBEST THREAD OF THE YEAR,
WITH THE LAMEST ANSWERS, GOES TO.....

THIS THREAD !!!!

I'm going to go down to the shed and hit myself over the head with a
short length of 4 x 2... it'll feel good after the pain of reading this thread

Cheers... jondee86

[MAGN1T]

All toyotas blow headgaskets sooner or later. Your time looks like it's up now.
Radiators only block because the owners keep putting water in there. That's the effect, not the cause. Check for bubbles coming out while it's idling.

Steve

Load of crap.
Just like saying all mitsubishi blow head gasket sooner or later.

Stock Mitsis don't blow headgaskets, they die due to bent valves and end up at pick a part. All because the water pump seized because the bearings rusted because the seal failed because there was too much pressure in the cooling system becuse the owner kept putting water into it instead of fixing it.
Far too hard for a mechanic to diagnose.

Steve

[Mr Revhead]

please. stop posting. seriously

[fivebob]

please. stop posting. seriously

But what would I do for my daily dose of humour then

Steve, you seem to be proving time and time again that there is a big difference between 30yrs experience and 1 years experience 30 times over