Head gasket or cracked block?
Asked by Jlt86 Feb 11, 2018 at 01:50 PM about the 2001 Toyota Camry LE
Question type: Maintenance & Repair
Okay so I failed to winterize my 2001 Toyota
Camry and it's froze over and has
overheated twice the second time the car
would not start I checked the oil and there is
a slight Milky tint to it
9 Answers
Maybe the milky color is just condensation. Does the engine spew a lot of white smoke after it is warmed up? Are you losing coolant? Have you checked the coolant level?
A compression test can indicate a blown head gasket. Short of tearing down the engine there is no 100% way to know. It may be a crack in the head or warpage too.
After it overheated the second time within 20 minutes of cooling down after the first time it overheated it would not start again I told the plugs and two of the plugs had oil residue on them as far as the coolant level the radiator is full
You could also try a leakdown test to look for excessive oil blowby in the compression chamber, but that is more technical than a simple compression test.
If the engine is actually frozen it would overheat due to lack of water circulation.
Being a 2001 Toyota after neglecting to have it winterized and the coolant freezing I'd sell it for scrap because it will cost you more in repairs than the car is worth !!!!! This should be a lesson that you should not forget in your life time PS with antifreeze at 12/gallon it would have made it where you could be still driving it , So how much did you save by using water , I figure you lost 1500 dollars , So sell it to Pull a part for 125 / ton
enginecreator answered 6 years ago
If it froze solid the freeze plugs would or should have pushed out the block to release the expanding fluid. Check if thermostat is working as-well as the cooling fans after doing a spark plug change and oil & filter change.
enginecreator answered 6 years ago
And after doing the leak down compression test on all cylinders of course, but if its cracked in the cooling passageways in the block, the only test for that is anti-freeze in oil pan, pull the oil drain plug to see if it has any in oil pan as it did not run long enough to mix together to look milky. Oil level may look too high also as oil floats.
Keeps loosing water but not on the ground blow water hoses off