well, it appears i wrote my little 1 year later review a bit too early. As the updated title suggests, my head gasket went on vacation. permanently. Came off the freeway and as i rolled up to the stop sign last night, the engine started sputtering and stumbling. Once i saw steam coming out from under the hood, i knew i was fucked.
i had been losing coolant the last few weeks but i wasn't sure where. i figured the water was just evaporating on it's way into the coolant overflow tank, but it was happening way too often. I had a sneaking suspicion it was sneaking into a cylinder since my oil level was dropping too and there wasn't any chocolate milk in the radiator.
As i popped the hood, i saw the overflow tank cap had popped off and was spilling coolant everywhere, the hoses and radiator cap were warm but too cool to be at operating temp, so i slowly cracked the cap. the remaining pressure released and to my dismay, the radiator was empty. I put the cap back on and limped the car home. At this point i was 99.9% sure my head gasket was gone. As it idled in my driveway, (if that's what you want to call it) i noticed the steam starting to pour out my tail pipe. now i was 99.95% sure, but once i smelled the sickeningly sweet smell of ethalyne glycol (antifreeze/coolant) that .05% doubt i had, disappeared.
I ordered a used engine today from a local toyota recycler for $350. and timing belt, tensioner, valve cover gasket and clutch from a local aftermarket warehouse for another $140. The engine is being delivered thursday and friday i'm doing the swap.
Now i can hear at least one of you asking why i don't just replace the head gasket.
Because i'm thorough about this shit
I plan on replacing the head gasket on the original motor, but when i pull the head, i'm sending it out to the machine shop to have the valve guides and seals replaced, providing the head isn't toast. From there, i reseal the bottom end, put it all back together, and put it back in the car. What i do with my spare motor, i dunno yet. At the very least i seal that one up too, and sell it for the $500 it cost me. Mods? i dunno. that could get pricey and i'm not in the position right now to blow wads of cash on making a 12,000 RPM motor. Or an insane Forced Induction motor. The last thing i need to do is become another ricer :roll: But on the other hand....who would see a Corolla coming?
Besides, given the success of the Toyota race teams....i think hi performance may not be the way to go