I have been given a 1976 Toyota Celica, which as you all know has the 20R motor. The car itself has been sitting in storage since 1998. I got the car from the original owner, which is my father-in-laws brother. Just before going into storage, the owner had the engine rebuilt. I have all the paperwork to verify this.
Before I was given the car, the owner started driving the car again, but quickly found out that the car would overheat after only a short time. Thats when the owner gave me the car. Before this, he had done a minor tuneup, Cap, rotor, plugs, wires & an LOF.
Since I got the car 3 months ago, I have of course not driven it & have finally been able to devote some time to begin tinkering with it. My first course of action was to check the coolant level. I found chocolate milk. This made me think of a possible head gasket that might be bad. Upon further inspection, I checked all fluid levels & found that except for the coolant in the radiator, all other fluid levels in the car are normal. I checked under the oil cap to look for either condensation or the tell-tale residue of the brown sludge that is present after a car with a blown head gasket has been driven for awhile. Apart from the normal thin oil residue, the cap was itself clean. I then checked the oil level and it was fine. There was no brown sludge in the oil pan, which I found was odd because if the head gasket had blown, then there would be a good chance that after the oil & coolant mixed & turned to sludge, it would be present in the oil pan & on the dipstick. Both were clean. (Apart from normal engine oil of course) The engine has been driven enough prior to me getting it that if there was a bad head gasket, & the oil & coolant was mixing there, it should have showed up in the oil pan and on the dipstick.
I looked to see if there were any coolant lines that went into the radiator that might have been leaking into the radiator itself, like an oil cooler line, but all I "think" I found was the AC lines & the P/S cooler lines going into & out of the radiator.
Does anyone here have any ideas or suggestions as to where I should look for a possible oil/coolant leak?
-MRG
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Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 AT 12:11 AM
