Tell me it aint so....

[arz]

OMG in 20 posts the only 3 guys to get it are Johnathan and skim and the original poster.

ITS A BHG 100%

You dont have to have a milkshake in you oil cap or oil in your coolant. Most of the head gasket failures are from 5 or 6 blowing the firing ring into the water jacket on the exhaust side of the head.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But I wil be very surprised if its not a BHG.

If you dont know how to change a head, cross your fingers the block isnt to corroded/pitted and start a pullin. Just use a cherry picker to lift that head out of there, unless your pretty burly and have a strong back.

Also heres more food for thought and a real good trick. If you catch (diagnose) a BHG right away.

It seems that BHG's go hand in hand with rod knock. As it was explained to me from an old timer, the ethylglycol (antifreeze) attacks the tin in the babbit and decreases the thickness of the rod and main bearings while it has time to sit stagnant in your motor. While you are pineing away on your BHG repair the very small amount of ethylglycol is eating away at your bearings.

Possible solution: Go get an oil change before you take the head off. Remove the head, and all related BHG requsite items, AND the front cover. Drain that fresh oil, put the oil pan bolt back on, refill more fresh oil thru the holes on the deck put 5 fresh quarts back in and a new oil filter. Now look at why you removed the front cover. That big pulley driven by the timing belt, that seems to spin relatively freely, is the oil pump drive pulley. put a 14mm socket on your rechargable drill and have your buddy plug the oil supply holes to the head and flush clean oil thru all the bearings.

Now you can sleep well knowing you did as much as you could possibly do to keep this motor from falling victom to the dreaded rod knock.

Oh wait the previous owner replaced the radiator?!?!

Forget everything I just said and pull the whole motor and change the bearings while your doing the BHG. Read the TSRM on bearing sizes you will be glad you did, The crank is marked with the proper sizes to put in the motor. It seems Toyota sized this motor with the bearings. They stamped the crank lobes (between 3 and 4) with the bearing oversize number 1-5.

You do not have to remove the crank from the block or even disturb the main seals. If you want to know how just let me know. However removing the oil pan while the motor is in the vehicle is just about impossible, People said they have done it but I call BS.

 

[jdub]

Andy - It very well may be a BHG. However, I had a clogged/leaky radiator that caused symptoms a lot alike what he's experiencing. Getting the cooling system pressure tested will tell the tale. Followed by a NAPA block test of course for a BHG

A pressure test doesn't cost very much...just eliminating there simple stuff first.

 

[JSHeinrich]

arz....thats what I thought I would hear. My father and I both think it is but like jdub said, mine as well change out the liitle things and hope it is somehting stupid causing it. I read on another post a guy had similar problems and just thought it was a bhg and changed it and he still has problems with it overheating.....

 

[Suprapowaz!(2)]

You can go to your local autoparts store and rent a pressure tester for free. Good luck.

 

[Steven]

Nobody has mentioned the possibility of a loose waterpump belt or other cause of slippage. Easy to check!

 

[johnathan1]

Check your fan clutch as well.

 

[jdub]

Check your fan clutch as well.

You know...this is very good advice. Especially since it seems rpm related...your fan may not be pulling enough air flow over the radiator to get rid of the heat.

 

[starscream5000]

On the subject of fan clutches. Granted I've never checked on here, but has anyone replaced the fan clutch with an aftermarket fan, like out of jegs? When the fan clutch is warmed up, it doesn't slip correct? It spins just as fast as the engine is spinning the water pump pulley at that specific RPM.

When the clutch is cold (or fubarbed) it doesn't spin as fast as the engine, correct?

Does the fan spin at the same speed that the water pump pulley does at max RPM (or any RPM for that matter), or does it spin faster somehow? If it spins at the same speed, then there shouldn't be a problem with modify a high performance fan for a v8 to the supra's water pump pulley correct? Plus, you would never have to worry about another fan clutch again .

Hopefully this is right, someone please inform us if you know the answer.

 

[Steven]

On the subject of fan clutches. Granted I've never checked on here, but has anyone replaced the fan clutch with an aftermarket fan, like out of jegs? When the fan clutch is warmed up, it doesn't slip correct? It spins just as fast as the engine is spinning the water pump pulley at that specific RPM.

When the clutch is cold (or fubarbed) it doesn't spin as fast as the engine, correct?

Does the fan spin at the same speed that the water pump pulley does at max RPM (or any RPM for that matter), or does it spin faster somehow? If it spins at the same speed, then there shouldn't be a problem with modify a high performance fan for a v8 to the supra's water pump pulley correct? Plus, you would never have to worry about another fan clutch again .

Hopefully this is right, someone please inform us if you know the answer.

I'm no expert on this - only one Supra for experience! - but when my fan clutch went years ago, it did so by "locking up", rather than by slipping. The fan could be turned with engine stopped, but was stiffer than usual. The fan really howled, even in cool weather. It ate a very noticable amount of power. I couldn't wait to get it changed out.

As I understand it, the clutch is a silicone liquid-filled thing with a thermostatic valve that lets fluid drain toward the hub when RPM goes down and keeps it there when cool, or conversely when hot lets it out to engage the blades as RPM comes up. It usually engages just a little bit when the engine is normally warm. It doesn't seem to be an all-or-nothing action.

When it works, it does a very good job.

 

[starscream5000]

So if you were to put a fan in there without a clutch than ran all the time there should be no problems right? I guess the only thing that I'm needing the know now is this: Does the stock fan spin any faster than the pulley it's on at any given RPM?

 

[Steven]

I'm sure that with the fan driven by the stock clutch, it never goes quite as fast as the pulley, and certainly cannot go faster. It is too simple a mechanism; no internal gears or anything like that.

If you put in a fan without a clutch, the fan had better have some other smarts about it, or it will either be too big or too small most of the time. Starscream5000, do you have a particular solution in mind?

I got at least 100,000 miles out of my first clutch, so it's not like the stock clutches are particularly unreliable.

For JSHeinrich's problem, he should check to see that the fan turns with a moderate bit of drag when the engine is stopped. How much? Compare to a known good fan clutch is all I can suggest. I know what mine always feels like. One little finger will turn it, but it feels like its turning in syrup. And the fan should make an audible howl every time the engine is rev'd and is hot, like driving hard around town in 80F or hotter weather.

But his symptoms - overheating engine, yet no heat coming out of the cabin heater - just have to be a failure of coolant circulation.

Fan couldn't cause that set of symptoms IMHO.

Enough combustion gas in the coolant from a BHG would cause increasing temperature excursions too, but he's not reporting enough other symptoms. Yet, anyway!

 

[jdub]

And it could be a combination of things too...air in the system from a leak, fan clutch, radiator cap. They can all add up to cause weirdness in the cooling system.

Oh course, Andy could be right as well...a BHG. It's worth it to make sure the cooling system is up to speed 1st.

Chris - You want to run a clutch if you stick with the stock fan.

 

[JSHeinrich]

Well as an update...

I drained my coolant. washed the system clean. I changed the thermostat as well as the radiator cap. it ran for about 20 minutes and then i drove it for like half hour. It did not overheat and it was blowing out blazing hot heat. I was happy

BUT, being that the supra is like a giant domino, if you fix one issue you get another. It now smokes like crazy, wasn't as bad at first and got worse.

The smoke was white at first, came out but did not linger. Then it turned into a lingering blueish tint smoke. The smoke is pouring out now.

My heat is taking a long time to come out and it goes back and forth from being hot and cold now.

 

[Snotcycle]

::bhg::

you sir need an engine teardown WOOHOO

 

[starscream5000]

It's starting to look that way...

 

[JSHeinrich]

::bhg::

you sir need an engine teardown WOOHOO

:wtc: that wouldn't make me so sad if I actually had money.

As an opinion, is it worth just doing the metal head gasket to be done with it or since I probably won't do mahjor mods for a while should i just put back a oem head gasket...

 

[blk92T]

if your limited in funds i'd put a stock one back in since major up grades are not in the plans for awhile.

 

[Steven]

That white smoke on start-up sure does sound like a BHG. Continuing blue smoke could mean oil is leaking somewhere too. Might be the head gasket again -- or might be rubber valve seals which might recently have gotten hard when overheated in a temperature excursion from lack of coolant.

Feel sorry for ya, man. I know the feeling.

Money? Forget money, you gave that up when you bought the Supra!

Keep checking your oil for coolant contamination. You don't want to corrode the whole bottom end as collateral damage.

Metal head gasket will cost you more for the gasket and the smoother deck preparation. You should put in ARP headbolt hardware too; the stock headbolts shouldn't be re-used anyway. I'm going to guess US $300 more to go MHG. I might be wildly out. Others here can give you a better number. My last head work was mixed with too much other engine work to sort it out.

I guess how much you want to spend on the engine has to do with the condition of the rest of the car. If you plan to run it for a long while yet, you will want to do much other clean-up work on the engine at the same time, so a metal head gasket will be a small extra cost. MHG will seem like a good thing to have done, when temptation leads you to the wastegate controller....

But if you just want to minimize costs and hope to get another couple of years out of the car, at reasonably stock boost, I suppose OEM gasket and bolts would do fine.

Gasket choice will depend too on how much milling on the deck surface is needed to clean off any corrosion grooves. Can't tell until the head is off.

 

[arz]

You know the whole job isnt that expensive if you do it yourself. It just takes time and patients. Provided nothing is corroded thru.

Safest way is to pull the harness off at the ECU then yank the whole motor and then you can do main bearings at the same time.

I to know how you feel, and I am sorry for your loss. Holler if you looking for the fastest, cheepest, easiest way to get it done. If you know your going to keep the vehicle just get a MHG. You will be happy you did in the long run.

 

[JSHeinrich]

Ok, well checked my oil today and it is milky....

I am VERY tight on cash. I had some until I got another supra and now i'm broke.

I think i'll be buying a stock head gasket for the time being and put that in. All I have is K&N Intake and HKS SSQV BOV. I plan on installing exhaust but not in the near future. By the time I have money and plan on doing major mods, I will probably have a JDM Motor to work with.

I will definately get the ARP Headbolts. I figure with a stock gasket i'll get 2-5 years running stock boost with and intake and bov shoudln't blow my head gasket, especially since it is not a daily driver...I will be doing it myself and i woudl like to have it done by the end of the winter. I work crazy hours and short of time...

If anyone thinks what i'm saying is incorrect and really disagrees with me please let me know


EDIT: I wanted to add that since I drained my coolant, changed the thermostat and replaced the radiator cap, I have not lost a drop of coolant.

Also, I have read some post on fixing a bhg, and searching for that is difficult because almost every thread has bhg in it. I saw some things that said the RA was 25 and what not. I'm not sure what that means. If someone knows of a thread that has good info on it or knows the best way of doing it please let me know. I don't know if there would be a difference in me doing a metal or a stock hg..