I kinda forgot about this thread, but I was talking with another forum member in a completely off-topic thread about my car. Anyway. Toyotas are great cars, heck mine lasted our family a quarter of the century, and let me preface this with the fact that this was the worse V6 Toyota ever produced, ever. Any Toyota buff has probably already guessed what engine this is: the 3VZ series. Introduced in the late 80s, Toyota's first V6 was plagued with problems relating to the head gasket. The 3VZ-FE (used in sedans) also had terrible oil sludging issues.
Anyway. There have been a total of three head gaskets on my car. One set was put on after it overheated and blew, 2nd set was when Toyota did the recall (fun fact, if your 3vze hasn't had the HGs done by Toyota, you still qualify for a free warranty replacement), 3rd was this summer when my radiator put a hole in itself (rust) and I let it overheat in a drive through without my knowledge.
However, I decided to do a full rebuild of the engine. 223k miles had done the job, and since it sat for four years, it burned a bit of oil. So my whole summer, I worked hard and got the heads bored, the surfaces planed, valves set, etc. We put the engine together and back in the car in three weekends. Now the new engine has 500 miles
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