Car Care Nut head gasket warning

@ScottyKilmer

 

Yeah. It's not uncommon for car mechanics to straight reject taking any car older than, say, 10 years for any repair. It makes sense. Especially, with transmissions. If anyone brings a 15 y.o. car w/ 200k miles on the odo to you for ATF change, more likely than not it means it already has some serious enough problems the owner tries to resolve before dumping the car.

I bought a car w/ 220k miles. It had one ATF replacement at 110k miles. Looking at ATF it was apparent torque converter clutch is failing. I still d&f transmission twice with cheap ATF I had around, just out of curiosity. It did not make anything worse. Of course, it did not improve anything, too. When I took the transmission apart, if was worn beyond repair. Very little can be reused for rebuild.

 

His head gasket is leaking, too.

 

You will always find the person who did all the wrong things and went 400,000 miles and the person who did all the right things and had a failure at 50,000 miles. Those are the exceptions.

For the rest of us I would stick with doing regular maintenance….. 10,000 mile OCI max or 6 months. Whatever comes first.

 

So I got to thinking about this last night.
Is it possible that the block that he was measuring at 0.0021" actually measured that at the beginning of its life?
The HG failed at the same spot that it measured low.
Could it be that the block was a little low in this area and it took 200,000 miles for the HG to fail? A new one would run another 200,000 miles?
I don't feel like he did a good job of talking to that at all.
Could it be that this is a common casting problem for these engines? The liners like to sink a little between 5 and 7?
Just a thought.

 

We could just run with the 0.5% claim made famous in the turd gen threads.

 

It is clearly a mechanical problem that develops over a course of long years.

 

More likely 0.5% of 0.5%.

 

(funny)^2

I like it.

 

I was wondering this myself. I'm not quite understanding the process he's claiming. Coolant never changed in 200k miles -> coolant eats away at rubber seal on head gasket -> engine overheats -> tears down engine to replace head gasket -> finds the BLOCK is warped but not the head. Wouldn't the head warp before the block?

 

It is possible for the block to move with heat... but it takes a lot of heat. However, more common is the block eroding because of the HG moving around on the block.
It seems like this guy probably followed the suggested maintenance and changed the coolant at 100k. This is way too long for coolant to hang out. It does get acidic and it has been known to chew up gasket material.
If that were my engine, I would bolt it back together and let it run. I bet it would be fin for another 200k. It is still within spec.

Maintenance intervals almost always have a timeframe as well. For things like coolant I think that the time interval is more important than the mileage. IMO if your coolant hangs out for 5 years, it is time to get some fresh stuff in there. Even if this is only 500 miles. I plan to do mine at 50,000 miles which will be at about 3.5 years.
Oil is a little different. My rule of thumb is 5,000 miles or six months. Generally 5,000 comes first but on my Ranger that gets driven much less, it is generally at about 3,000 in six months. I think that you would be fine with 10,000 mile OCI if you did this within six months. This would mean that you are probably running the car in a well warmed up state for long periods of time. This is very easy on the oil whereas running a lot of short cold trips is very hard on it.
Brake fluid is every 5 years MAXIMUM. Mileage here really does not matter.
Power steering gets flushed with the trans service every 30,000 miles. I think that an argument could be made for 60,000 OCI for the transmission but I am not willing to go there. For this one I would say that three years is a max.
Differentials are also every 30,000 miles. I don't think that there is a time-based need for this one.

My two cents.

 

Well, I posted earlier that 2 out of 3 dealers I contacted, said it was the # of hot and cold cycles that mattered. The third did not have an opinion. They just said bring it in and we can change it. 8^|. What do dealers know anyway.
I attempted to change the fluid on my 4Runner. I could reach both drains without jacking up the vehicle, but damn it, if I could not get the leverage to take the engine block drain off. That nut was not budging.

 

I think that if you hit the radiator drain on a regular basis you should be good. But.... It is always nice if the drains are opened regularly because someday you will want them to open
I think that it is more than just hot/cold cycles. I remember reading somewhere that without getting hot enough the inhibitors will saturate quickly and the coolant goes acidic.
I will need to brush up on this.

 

I got some litmus paper to see how acidic my coolant is since I'm due for changes anyway. First up was my 2011 4Runner, last changed 4/2020 and only 40K miles ago. I used Xerex pink the last two changes. This engine has 155K on it. PH was 9.5, and the PH of my brand new Xerex is also 9.5.

I have a Sienna to check if the engine ever has time to cool off (wife drives it a lot) with about the same time on the coolant, but 90K miles. The acidic theory doesn't look promising based on this one data point, this is slightly alkaline.

 

I just had a look at my Tundra.
Is there a method to open the rad drain without removing the skid plate?
The handles on the drain are at a bad angle.
Easy to connect a hose to it but can't get my hand up there to open it.
The engine drain is a breeze with the wheel turned right.
thx .

 

I use a mechanics glove. The initial start is tight, but as soon as it moves a little (often with a crack noise that's worrisome with plastic) it turns easily. I've done this many times and never broken one on a toyota (knock on wood). Dodge's arrangement breaks on me every time.

 

It’s not like the tone of the video is “hey guys I noticed this one thing on UR V8s, just keep an eye out for it, take care!”

He goes on a huge smug rant, all but saying that UR V8 engines are bad and the we are silly for loving them.

He has had an overall approach lately of defending the v6TT and smack talking the 5.7. I get that the v6tt has phenomenal performance, and the current issues may just be growing pains. So if his attitude was v6tt good and 5.7 good too, ok I get it. But v6tt good, 5.7 bad? Despite over a decade of evidence to the contrary? A personal agenda is showing.

As you said though, follow your maintenance schedules and whatever else you like to supplement it with. I like CCNs videos but he’s just a mechanic with a YouTube channel. Everyone on YouTube turns into an e-whore once some decent checks start rolling in.

 

Data point #2:
2004 4Runner with 202K on it. Coolant has been in since 4/2020 and has 35K miles on it. PH is 9.5. Also was Xerex pink for multiple prior changes.

Data point #3:
2015 Sienna with 190K on it. Coolant has been in since 1/2020 and 90K miles on it. PH is 8.0. Again, Xerex pink for the last two changes.

The Xerex pink claims to be good for 150K or 5 years. Given the PH change in the Sienna, I'm leaning toward thinking of 100K and 5 years as a safe maximum. As you can see though, I mostly do my coolant changes based on time.

 

Interesting. The results, roughly same time frame but different miles support the hot/cold cycles the dealers referred to.
My '17 4Runner I assume was original fluid. with 60k kilometers. 37k miles.
That would be a good candidate for the time based PH test. But I don't have any strips.
The Coolant I extracted is in clear bottles. It still looks just like the new coolant color wise.

 

Litmus strips are cheap, you can get them on Amazon. Store it in a dark, dry place (I use a zip lock bag and leave them in my toolbox).

$6 3 Pack pH.1-14 Test Paper Extensive Test Paper Litmus Test Paper 240 Strips pH Test with Storage Case for Saliva Urine Water Soil Testing Pet Food and Diet pH Monitoring (3 PACK with Storage Case)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0811PYS6T Like you, all my coolant looked like new coming out.

 

I can't get my hand in there to get a decent grab on the small wing nut. I didn't want to remove the skid plate till the next oil change. So I went from the top - first pic. Long pliers let me get a good grip to just pop the seal on the nut, then I went underneath and used one finger to loosen.

I have testing strips coming. I think it will be a good Acidic test of time (6 years) and low mileage. I bought my 18 Tundra new.

I should mention that I took out 10 Liters over 2.5 gallons. The Toyota containers are 3.78 Liters - 1 gallon. Good thing I had an extra jug.

 

I was expecting different results.
This simple test shows that 6 and 7 year old low mileage coolant is not acidic.
These results seem to support what the dealers told me that coolant is affected by hot/cold cycles and not "time"
How accurate it is I don't know.

@vtl
I would think an acidic solution contributing to wearing out the gasket, should show more visually widespread wear, instead of just that one area (spot) in the video, that created a path for the coolant to go into the cylinder?

 

This is an interesting investigation. Two questions that I have:

1. Are the test strips the end all for this test? Do we know that they will work in antifreeze? I don't know why they wouldn't. I also know that test strips have a window in which they should be used. Like they need to be read between 30 seconds and two minutes after they are exposed. Outside of that range and they are not accurate any longer?

We know that as coolant ages it becomes more acidic. Or at least this is what we are told to be true. If that is the case I would expect that we should be seeing some sort of a trend here. I will pick some up and try this. I have a host of cars in my fleet of various ages, coolant types and coolant ages.

Is there something other than acidity that could cause this?

2. Is the situation with the Tundra in the video a case of a block that was not quite level from the factory? Maybe it has nothing to do with coolant? Seems to me like the engine was within service limits. I am sure that there are tolerances on a new block as well. Maybe this was always a low spot in the block and as such this was the first place that the gasket failed?

 

Could be a lot of things. Could be an additive causing a problem and no one can definitively say or know what coolant those people were using for sure. Might not even be the coolant. Might have even been a bad lot of gaskets, some variable during installation at the factory, etc. All in all, I think it is good information but a low probability issue.

 

CCN is not your friend now if he ever was.

 

People should learn to use a digital multi-meter to check the voltage in their cooling system. I've found after about 30K-35K miles the voltage reading of the coolant is commonly around 0.4V.....meaning it needs to be changed.

 

Please explain this process.

 

Interesting

The guy in this video says coolant should read .1 to .2 volts. Approaching .2 volts is time to change.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxQ2zHHZfoI

This can be done with brake fluid too. Same guy different video. Brake fluid should not be more than 3% water so .3 volts on the multimeter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No5Hmk9Q_6A

 

Thanks. Set the scale to 0.0whatever. Positive lead on ground and negative lead in coolant. Got it. I'll check mine when I find the appropriate scale.