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Not what I hoped for..

Dankiama80

New Member
Joined
May 17, 2017
Messages
5
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australia
Copied from intro section;

Hi all,

So I've had a few vehicles, and always loved my off roaders, first was a raised '79 VW single cab ute flared with big Duelers, was surprisingly capable! Then a SWB MavPatrol which didn't need much but some suspension extension. Then lots of fun was had with the '76 RR 3.9 Cant think of a nut I didn't turn or upgrade on it. Then the '04 hilux dual cab with the 1kzte 3.0 T. Reliable! Great work and play truck. Upgraded to the '14 Ranger XLT. Amazing out of the box. Covered Fraser with stock tyres and suspension, not stuck once.

Which brings me to now.. So I was looking for a towing and adventure truck with my limited budget of around $7.5k And settled on a FZJ80 pet/gas with 400k, receipts for 10k services and evidence of garaging its whole life. Stock, with the original spare on the carrier, mostly used for mum going to the pool and shops and dad to the boatramp then the carwash. Immaculate. I get it for $6k. Checked the oil for water and the water for oil, drove it, agreed the gas needed a slight tune as idle was low.

Towed that day for 350ks no problem, 3 days later started to push water out of overflow and lpg thingy freezing up and wont drive 10k's on lpg, great on petrol. Replaced rad cap and flushed coolant system, bit of blockage in smaller hoses, not sure what. Then all good. Installed snorkel. All great. Next day drive to work and pull up billowing white smoke.

Go to mechanic and we agree the head has to come off due to missing and smoke and steam.

Damn, its a week in my driveway and looks like Im up for a $3k repair. Should have done a pressure test..

Im looking for a Head with gas valve setup and bolt and gasket kit. Any help appreciated please.

Cheers,

Dan
 
Why are you looking for a head Dan? What's Actually wrong with your existing one? What did the mechanic find when the head came off? Sounds to me like you've had the head gasket fail for whatever reason. Can the head not be skimmed? Has it been crack tested?

You say 'towed for 350k', what did you tow with it, on your first day of ownership with a truck unfamiliar to you? Could it be there were signs of overheating before the previous owner decided to sell? Did you have an eye on the temperature gauge while towing?

These beasts run best with Toyota own coolant in them. The diesels use the red coolant, don't know about the petrol ones. What colour was the coolant when you checked it?

Loads of questions I know, but I believe these engines suffer with head gasket and valve problems if used a lot on LPG. There's a few I've seen on eBay being sold with head gasket faults and LPG installed and guys on here that won't use it on these trucks. That said there's plenty on LPG so it seems they can do some miles before giving trouble.
 
Thanks for the reply,
Mechanic will have the head off on monday, so trying to line everything up expecting the worst. The majority of info I have read is that it is more likely a cracked head than a gasket, and many mentions of heads failing just after recon. So If I can pick one up cheaper it will be an overall quicker process.

No evidence of overheating, and none on any of my drives. The first tow was an empty trailer (8x5) run and return with about 200kg of load. No big deal. Watched the gauge all the way, flipped between gas and pet.

Coolant was red and changed regularly according to mechanic.

Has always been started and run till warm on Petrol then switched to gas. From what I understand its all about lubrication.

Wanted a diesel though not in the budget at the moment, guess I will end up spending it anyway.. If I can get another year out of it without major problems it might get a gas built v8. or just get a oiler..
 
NSW or QLD?

If NSW, then the best bet is probably to try All4x4 spares in Newie and see if they have a spare head; the problem is is that they don't like LPG, but lots of people liked to run them on LPG... my 4Runner is the same - it's a petrol one, so finding one that hadn't been on LPG was a challenge.

Otherwise it might be grab a 'fresh' motor and reco it from the ground and go from there. Get the rebuild kits from Amayama or PartSouq I suspect is the recommendation from here. (I need to go there next and have a look for a VRS kit for my 4Runner...)
 
If the engine runs well on petrol I would not be pulling the head. Single biggest problems with LPG is the heat exchanger gets clogged inside. The result is the injection of LPG while still in liquid form, not good for the engine, if you continue to inject fluid into the combustion chambers you risk an hydraulic lock which will do permanent damage.

First a compression test, if good go for a leakdown test, if good leave the head alone and investigate the heat exchanger.

Regards

Dave
 
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