Boiling Water / Coolant in Resevoir Tank with Video - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

toddub · 10-08-2011, 02:47 PM

Greetings,

I have a 1998 Toyotawith a 1MZ-FE 3.0 v6 engine. It has 195K on it. I purchased it with no keys, a broken Window, 2 broke door handles and a bad radiator. I replaced everything and it started up. I drove it around town on some short trips. Everything seemed fine. Friday. I took it on a 180 mile round trip. About 125 mile into it on my way back I stopped to use my cell phone. I noticed my coolant resevoir had water in it boiling up and blowing out the over flow. I had to stop several times on the way home to let it cool off and add more water. I never let it get into the red. The whole trip up until that point the Temp Gauge never moved from just above 1/3rd of the way up.

When I got home I pulled the thermostat and placed it into a pot of water and let it boil. The thermostat opened fully. Before putting it back in I flushed the block and radiator with water. I put it back in and let it idle for a while with the radiator cap off, filling it up as needed. I then took it for a ride and the same thing started again.

I have a YouTube video of what is going on.

You Tube

http://youtu.be/Sk4I-lti67U

Please take a look and offer any feedback that might help me solve this problem.

Luckynumber5 · 10-08-2011, 04:06 PM

I hate to say it but it sounds like the head gasket let go or you have a major clog in the cooling system. I have done a lot of head gaskets on several different cars and testing for a blown head gasket can be a pain. It sounds like the car was abused and not maintained before you got it, especially if the radiator was bad.

***fenixus*** · 10-08-2011, 04:36 PM

before you do ANYTHING else, first get a new radiator cap (it's a pressure check valve too) from dealer and replace it right away.

coolant could be boiling because it's unable to build pressure and thus its effective boiling point is shifted MUCH closer to boiling water temperature, especially if there is some old crappy coolant mixture in the system. flush it with distilled water and refill system with Toyota RED LLC mixture in close future. Toyota Long Life coolant (comes as a concentrate, needs to be diluted 50/50 with distilled water) can easily last 3-5 years and maintain its properties.

1mz-fe has the rad cap mounted on the actual engine block, not on the top of radiator like the 5s-fe does. it has a yellow label on it.

toddub · 10-08-2011, 05:30 PM

I replaced the radiator cap. It delayed the boiling.

I now have removed the thermostat and drove it on the freeway and in stop and go traffic. It is not boiling up. although, the resevoir bottle is slowly filling up after I shut the engine off.

I am going to let it cool down and drain the tap water out of the radiator, then fill it with coolant. The Toyota shop is closed today and Advace Auto Parts did not have Toyota RED LLC Coolant.

***fenixus*** · 10-08-2011, 06:12 PM

get a new thermostat and gasket from the dealer while shopping for RED LLC coolant (around $24/gallon of concentrate, giving you 2 gallons of coolant after diluting, enough for 1mz-fe, top off with distilled water).

there is a chance, it's just a bad coincidence, not yet a HG issue especially if you do not have the oil looking like a McDonalds shake (milky) on the dipstick and no butter under the oil filler cap. also if car doesn't blow white fumes from the exhaust that's another good sign.

Luckynumber5 · 10-09-2011, 02:27 AM

Thats the tricky part with head gaskets, more often than not I have a car come in with overheating problems just like this one and it turns out the head/heads have some minor warping. No loss in compression, no water in oil, minimal water in exhaust/ no coolant smell. They just overheat after a drive. Its a safe bet this is a head gasket problem unfortunately

I hope there is a simple solution for you, I really do. But if it keeps puking coolant out without overheating skip to the compression test and see if that may reveal something.

Last car that came through was an 03 civic 1.7. Those have a mls head gasket from the factory. Compression test revealed nothing, no oil in coolant or coolant in oil just overheating under a load. Looked in the spark plug holes and no water in the cylinders. Owner said to go ahead and remove the head and it turned out to be warped just enough to cause problems when the engine was under load.

***fenixus*** · 10-09-2011, 05:09 PM

you can always do a cooling system pressure test to see if it's able to build pressure (helps finding leaks too), especially if you do this with spark plugs removed, if HG is blown then some coolant will be squirting out of one of tubes likely.

another test is testing coolant for the presence of exhaust gases.

compression test not always point to blown HG issues, unless the results are obvious when the HG is severely blown. but then usually the car blows white fumes and looses coolant while driving, other symptoms may or may not be visible.

I've never had this problem myself, just that's what I read about here.

considered that rad cap has been replaced (assuming the radiator is not clogged and circulation is good) and thermostat works fine off the car, then I would pay some mechanic to do those tests to be sure.