Other parts to replace while replacing Head Gasket

[timsrv]

[bushcat]

Got the van back yesterday. Drove home, no overheating. Head gasket that was used was Toyota, all other gaskets came from a fel pro kit. Mechanic said nothing about fitment issues with the fel pro gaskets. Van has 203k miles. Will update as I drive. Interesting enough, it seems the Beck Arnely TPS I bought was bad, he said he put the old one back in. Not sure what Rock Auto's return policy is on this sort of thing but I'm going to contact them. Unfortunately the mechanic didn't tell me before giving back the van as I would have ordered a replacement. Overall, happy to get the van back with no overheating issues.

[iq_artwork]

Hello everyone I hope you are doing good. I need your help please with an issue I have with my van.

I have an ’84 Toyota van for a year and a half. When I bought the van, I had few overheating problems. I found a mechanic and he got them fixed immediately by replacing the thermostat - fun clutch - water bump and rebuilt my radiator and after that the van was running fine. He also ran a test and he told me my engine is fine.

Few months ago I replaced all the coolant hoses and added an extra radiator mod. Then I replaced all my vacuum lines, PCV and Gomment, Cover Gasket, cleaned the Throttle Body, new TPS and the van was running better than my 2016 vehicle.

This week I made an appointment with a shop which I have been twice there, to replace my fuel injectors. When they finished they told me “you may have a bad head gasket, you can still drive but pay attention with your overheats”. Also they recommended me to do a leak down test to check my compression. When I left from the shop and I started driving my van, I felt it way less strong and I noticed a coolant leaking behind the manifold either from HOD or the hose under the manifold.
“I want to mentioned here, the mechanic replaced these two hoses with new ones. I asked him to replace only the one under the manifold and he replaced the HOD as well. Because I was using a radiator tube hose (pic attached in the bottom) instead of a heater hose”. OK, nothing wrong with that. So I noticed the leak stopped after 5 mins while my van was parked. So I though the clamps were not well tight.

The next day I went back to the shop to tell them about the coolant leak issue, hoping they will take care of it. They took the van and they ran the leak down test. They ran only #1 and #2 cylinder. So my first cylinder was fine and my second was low. they never ran #3 and #4.
So they told me you have a bad compression and you need a new head gasket. So there is no sense for us to tight the hoses now bc a pressure will make another leak somewhere else.
My question now is, how true is that? Bc my van was holding the temperature great. The week before, I drove for 2hours and a half with a weather 82F to test my new extra radiator mod and the van performed great, it never pasted the middle point of the temp gauge.


My questions and worries are:

-Can the new fuel injectors cause or increase the problem?
-I was wondering if coolant passing from both gaskets in the manifold?
-I didn’t have any coolant on my oil and the van was running strong before the injectors got replaced.
-Is the van ok to run in 3 cylinders? but in my case I don’t know if my #3 and #4 cylinders are good, bc they never finished the test.
-If they fix the leak and the van holds the temperature, am I ok to drive for 30-50 mins?

What do you suggest me to do, thank you very much for your help!!!

Here my leak down test, sorry it's pixelated: I think they set it up for 100psi and from what I can see in the video I get around 15% leakage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IM7NOX1D_U

Here the Fuel Injectors I used:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Toyota-Van-...rd!90045!US!-1

Pic of my old DOH hose (the one he got replaced with a heater hose)

[Hammervan]

The injectors and leaking coolant hoses should be totally unrelated to a suspected head gasket issue. I would question the mechanic's results. All you know is that there is a pressure leak, but it could be valves or pistons... unless they saw bubbles in the coolant during the test? 15% isn't a catastrophic result. I would suggest getting a chemical test to confirm a blown head gasket. As long as it is not overheating and there isn't a ton of coolant pouring into your cylinders (which would cause noticeable white smoke from your exhaust) you should be able to drive it briefly with a blown head gasket. Just keep an eye on your fluids.

[Burntboot]

IF I was doing a leak down test I wouldn't stop half way because I found some low numbers.

A proper leak down test means you set THAT cylinder to TDC(firing) (combustion chamber at its smallest) and LOCK the engine in position, then apply a measured amount of air and watch how much leaks out.
All sounds simple enough BUT if the engine isnt quite at TDC or isnt locked into position, false results will follow.

The reason the #2 becomes suspect is that after #1 is down, you disassemble the gear and move on to #2, moving it to TDC and locking the engine.....
Just forgetting to lock the engine can let it rotate backwards enough that a valve cracks open and a "massive fail" ensues
At that point, instead of dropping tools, I go back and make sure I didn't do something stupid and usually find I did.
Even something as simple as the tester not being fully tight (think dirty spark plug threads here) can cause a fail.
(90% of my No 2 cylinder "fails" have been because I forgot to advance the motor to TDC #2, a #2 fail is a BIG red flag for me)

Sounds like they screwed up on the repair or the diagnosis, but something doesn't smell right.

[iq_artwork]

Hammervan and Burnboot thank you very much for your replies!

Burnboot, I can see the test is not locked down, just noticed that.
From tutorials I have seen online the needle goes from 0 and up. In my test the needle is coming the opposite way.. right?

But yes, there were bubbles coming out of the filler neck.

From my understanding the symptoms can be:

1) OK, I may have a blow head gasket. (But so far, I had never seen a white smoke or coolant in my oil or under the valve cover and the van was running strong).

2) Could be the manifold? Can air coming through if the mechanic installed wrong? (bc when I took it the first time from the mechanic and drove it, the van wasn't that strong like before).

2) Could be a bad coolant bleeding? I may mess up when I was bleeding the coolant system a month ago and the van still has lots of air in the system, hmm?


Thank you very much for all your help!

[iq_artwork]

Also they replaced one of my manifold gasket bc the old one broke when they removed the manifold.
I'm wondering, is coolant passing through the manifold and from this gasket?

[iq_artwork]

Hello again,

I took my van back long time ago and drives fine. But I still wanted to do some tests to make sure everything is fine. So I went to another mechanic shop for a head gasket test and they told me I don't have any issues with my head gasket.
I also did the chemical test (Block Tester) and came out fine. Then I decided to do a compression test to see if my engine is fine and I got this numbers (pic below).

Are these number OK?

[Hammervan]

Those are good numbers, especially for an old van. If you passed the chemical test and have good compression like that, I'd say you can rule out head gasket issues for now.

[iq_artwork]

Hammervan thanks for your reply!

Yes, I agree!