Dodge Casteel

Okay, so I let my mother borrow my baby, and I'm freaking out thinking she blew it up. My rig is as follows:
1999 4Runner Limited 3.4L 2WD AT (370,000 miles and they're all me).
Now I have changed the timing belt on this thing every 100,000 miles. So I'm 70,000 miles into my third belt. I have religiously changed the oil and done every maintenance spec at the exact intervals the original owners manual says to do them whether or not they were actually needed. This vehicle has got me through 5 deployments overseas, 2 divorces, and more hookers than I can count. I bought this thing brand new off the showroom floor at the age of 14 (we get farmers permits where I'm from), and have babied this thing and took better care of it than I ever did either relationship with either wife. My mom needed to borrow a car recently, and normally I would loan her my truck, but needed it for harvest season. Very reluctantly, I allowed my baby out of my possession and loving hands for the first time in my life. She calls me after having it for 2 days. She gives me the worst news possible. She tells me the love of my life is dead on the side of the road. Here is the scenario of how it went dead.

She is driving around 40 to 45 mph on a gravel road. Normal around here. Well maintained roads but gravel. Everything is running fine. She says she then hears what she describes as a backfire, the engine dies, and then she coasts to a stop. Car then will not start but it does crank. So, I arrive a short time later that afternoon, and car is in same condition. Crank no start. Sounds like it wants to crank but will not. First time in the long sweet history of me and this vehicle that this had ever happened. She always starts. She's got a 5VZFE. She ALWAYS starts. So I go through the checks. Battery. Brand new. Checked perfect on tester. Checked fuel delivery before filter, after filter, and at injectors. Pressure tested. All check out. Check the catalytic converters. Unbolt rear cat first. No change. Unbolt front cat. No change. No Check Engine Light. No stored DTCs. Had no way to test compression right there in the field, but everything other than that showed no indication that anything is wrong. So I decide to tow home and cry the entire way there. Situation at this point is still crank no start.

I question my mother some more as fervently as I would a suspected terrorist overseas, and get some more info out of her. After explaining the "backfiring" she heard in more detail, I surmised it was not a backfire out of the tail pipe, but instead a detonation from the engine compartment. I cried some more. The following morning, in the daylight, I start tearing into this thing. I immediately notice the coolant reservoir tank is empty, so I open up the radiator cap and there's no coolant to be seen. I panick thinking the worst. I look at the underside of the radiator cap. Small bit of relief. No milky substance. Whew. I then remove the oil fill cap. Again relief. No milky substance underneath. Whew. Then I pull the dipstick. Heart racing as it comes out and... Boom... Worst fear realized. There is indeed water in the oil... But...

It didn't seem to be the shade of milky white nor the consistency one would normally expect from a blown head gasket or cracked head. Alas, a small but powerful glimmer of hope. So I immediately drain the oil. I put no oil in it, so I had left the drain plug out. I am still thinking blown head gasket or cracked head at this time, and the way I thought to test this was to fill the radiator up and see if it leaks out the drain plug eventually. If it did, I wasn't rebuilding, I was just going to put in another 3.4L I had purchased years prior out of an identical 4Runner that had wrecked around 35,000 miles (yes I love this vehicle so much I have had a spare engine in a climate controlled environment for well over 10 years). However, I really didn't want to put the new engine in. I read an article about a guy who got over a million miles out of an 5VZFE before it blew on him and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to try to break that record. So, as I go to fill the radiator with water and food coloring to determine where the water was leaking into the oil, it took me no time at all to realize this wasn't going to be possible. As fast as I was pouring water in to the radiator, it was pouring out of the oil drain plug. BLEW MY MIND. I've worked on semis, tractors, Bob cats, front end loaders, dump trucks of all sizes, combines, sprayers, etc etc etc. Never in all my years have I seen this before. Water goes in to radiator. Same amount of water comes straight out the oil drain plug. Its as if I have shoved the water hose all the way through the engine and out the drain plug. That's how fast it goes out.

Any ideas on what the world has happened? Please help me save the only thing I've ever truly loved. The only thing I've done more consistently than take care of her is masterbate and brush my teeth. In that order.

millball

Con rod thrown thru cylinder wall into water jacket??

Dodge Casteel

Not good. Engine is dust in the wind. I'll post pics

toyoda addict

370,000 is a good run.

Discombobulated

Well , you have a motor ready I would put the motor in and then……….in that order

prcnctoyo

Definitely not Mom's fault!