blown head gasket? 95 4runner w/ 3.0 v6

slednecks1124 · May 27, 2012

My wife was driving to work today, she got about 30 minutes away from the house and all of a sudden the car started chuggin, when she got into Lacey and had to stop at the stoplights it would idle real rough like it was going to die. She limped it to work and called me to come check it out.

I went to her work to check it out, I started it up and it immediately ran like crap. When I would give it a little throttle it would start to smoke out the exhaust and it had a really funky smell, kinda had a small hint of sulfur. I went to take it for a drive and didnt even think I was going to make it out of the parking lot, it would surge a bit when I tried to accelerate but kinda ran a little better once I actually got going. I pulled the dipstick when I got back to see if I could see any traces of coolant but didnt see any, pulled the oil cap off and there was like tan milky oil on the underneath of the cap. Would this be a blown headgasket?

The vehicle is a 95 Toyota 4Runner with the 3.0 V6 & it has about 275K miles on the odometer.

and if it is a blown headgasket, is it driveable about 30 miles back home? I dont have a way to tow it home right now so im hoping we can limp it back home.

WA-Wheeler · May 27, 2012

milky oil sounds like head gasket......you could, theoretically, limp it home but you risk doing more damage.... This is in my personal opinion of course.

zukkev · May 27, 2012

Sulfur smell is not going to be head gasket...nor is necessarily the residue under the fill cap you speak of...If the oil's clean (IE: not milky looking) on the dipstick, I'd venture to say it's something else going on...Not that I'd say it's ok to drive mind you....:eeek:
Check engine light? Is the smoke out the pipe blackish grey, or blueish white? was it a sudden thing, or did it come on gradually over the trip into town???

slednecks1124 · May 27, 2012

zukkev said:
Sulfur smell is not going to be head gasket...nor is necessarily the residue under the fill cap you speak of...If the oil's clean (IE: not milky looking) on the dipstick, I'd venture to say it's something else going on...Not that I'd say it's ok to drive mind you....:eeek:
Check engine light? Is the smoke out the pipe blackish grey, or blueish white? was it a sudden thing, or did it come on gradually over the trip into town???

It was hard to distinguish the smell of the exhaust fumes but the only thing I could make out of it was a little bit of sulfur smell. yea the oil on the dipstick did not look milky like the oil underneath the cap.

No check engine light. the smoke out the exhaust was like white, I didnt notice any blueish color to the white though. She said it was pretty much a sudden thing, she said it felt like she was hidding bumps in the road cause it kinda started chugging (this is coming from a women:haha

.

She does not get off until 7 in the morning and I am going there to follow her home. Is there anything I should look for or try before we venture home? I might bring some straps and just tow it home to be safe, luckily its basically all back roads home but its a damn long ways on some straight roads lol.

WHITE TRASH1 · May 27, 2012

You mention checking the oil but no mention of the radiator. If its using that much water to be running shitty its going to be low if its the head gasket.

slednecks1124 · May 27, 2012

WHITE TRASH said:
You mention checking the oil but no mention of the radiator. If its using that much water to be running shitty its going to be low if its the head gasket.

I forgot to mention the radiator, I checked the fluid level and it was low, I added 3 bottles of water to the radiator.

Sandtrap1986 · May 28, 2012

How does it sound when it runs? Mine jumped a tooth once and ran like that

zukkev · May 28, 2012

If the white exhaust smoke smells sickly/sweet, and kinda lingers around, not really quickly dissipating into the atmosphere...chances are it's blowed a HG....