93 Camry Wagon 3vz-fe head gasket problems

[CRXperiment]

Hello,
I recently inherited a 93 camry wagon with a v6 from my dad. The car has been sitting for a few years and it only has 91k. It runs but I suspect a burnt headgasket in the rear side head toward the firewall. I puffs white smoke out the exhaust, runs with a misfire, and occasionally smoke billows out of the head coupled with loss of coolant. The coolant, however, has not turned brown or anything.

My question is that there is a lack of space in reaching the rear head, how can I possibly run a compression test? Do I have to take the intake off? Is this a job I can tackle myself? I have had many years experience with cars, mainly Hondas and have a wide array of tools. I just am having trouble gaining access to the rear head and would like to know what is involved.

[tkNukem]

yup, you'll have to take the plenum off. It's a tough sumbitch...getting to those rear plugs. Before you lift the plenum, you'll have to take off a lot of vacuumm hoses and such. Check out the engine manual for the ES300 (it also has the 3VZ-FE) http://www.camrymanuals.com/manuals/...S_300_FSMs.zip

Here's what my dad and I did:


Assuming your camry is bricked (not trying to drive it if it misfires?), you could probably spend the extra time taking off the intake chamber entirely and take off the head/replace gasket while it's disassembled. Hope that's your problem though, cause that'd suck if it was broken rings/seals.