Now to deal with the coolant problem... oil in the coolant horay! its been neglected for the past 5 + years, so im gonna flush it, and go from there. If its a very slow lead then im not gonna worry too much. my overflow is full of dirty dirty coolant, with traces of oil, OR dirty dirty oil with traces of coolant...haha. well the car dosnt overheat or have any noticable problems. its syphons cooling liquid as normal and runs great. so far if found out the follwoign could be a the problem. Cracked block - BOOO Blown head gasket (i dont see any white smoke) - Bring it on! Water pump - Wish I could find the damn thing Idiot (someone purned some oil into the overflow) - D'oh Rad (oil traveling through the cooling pipe thing is leaking into rad) - um... atleast its not the block! Flush it this weekend and go from there. If its a slow leak then its just gona live with it. Car only drives 25 km twice a day..... I want a beams 3sge :'(
This may not be as bad as you think, if the coolant is very old you can often get some separation of the fluid plus lots of condensation that shows as oil in the overflow tank. Luckily, oil and water don't mix well so when they are together it's very easy to see. Here's what to do: 1- when the engine's cold, open the radiator cap and take a look inside. If it's got lots of thick, white foam (like oily shaving cream) you've got oil leaking into your cooling system. This is almost always a head gasket, but could be some of the other things you mention. However, those almost always have bigger effects on the engine, like blowing up! 2- While the engine's still cold, check the dipstick. If you see a white foam at the top of the oil level, that means water is getting into the oil. Since oil pressure is greater than water pressure, it means the water is getting in when the engine isn't running. Again this is usually a head gasket (when the engine cools, there's a very slight relaxing of the clamping force between the head and block) but could also be a crack in the head or block (which often will seal up when they heat). 3- When the engine's still cold, start it up and let it run for about a minute, revving it a few times. Shut it down and check the dipstick again. If there's water in your oil it will really foam up good while the oil's cold and you'll see it now. If you do these things and don't see anything, odds are your cooling system is fine. Flush it good - you can drive it for a short time on straight water just to get all the nasty bits out, then refill it per others instructions and you'll be good to go. Hope this helps. Tom
turns out the coolant is VERY OLD, and is the exact same colour of oil. I drained some coolant and added water and it mixed. gonna flush it this weekend
Sounds like a good sign. It's amazing how well Toyota make their cars, they seem like they'll run forever even when treated poorly. Tom
