Does Gasket Sealant Work?

I've got a 90's 4cylinder econobox junker car (96 Toyota Tercel)and an empty bank account. Its starting to make white smoke when I floor it so even though its not overheating or burning a ton of liquids I'm sure Its a head gasket.
The car is not worth taking to a mechanic and while I'm good at a lot of basic mechanical work the internal engine timing system is a mystery me.
I just need this car to last 1 more year till I'm out of school.

Have any of you had good experiences with Head gasket sealers like Blue Devil, K&W, or sodium silicate?

No you fucking broke retard. Any stop leak works by making your gaskets expand and damaging your engine. It's a nigger rig.

Either fix it properly, or take the bus

>not worth taking to a mechanic


what does this even mean

The engine is already fucked, I would never even think to try this in a good car.
I just want to know what I can do to get as much life out of the car as I can without pouring money into it

>The engine is already fucked

Your only symptom is white smoke when you floor it and you think it's fucked?

Doing headwork by yourself is cheap. It's just the price of a head gasket kit and the price for a machine shop to skim the head as well as two days of your time.

Hell it might not even be the head. The intake gasket could have a slight leak around the water passage.

You need it to last a year? Well just don't floor it an check your fluids every cold start.

I ran my car with a leaking radiator, a gasket so fucked that as soon as you turned the engine off the 3rd cylinder started filling with water. When you swing it it would hardly swing due to having to push water back into the cooling system, blowing off the over flow cap and shooting the remainder out the exhaust. When it caught, settled down and stopped misfiring, you put in extra water into the radiator. You didn't put in water before hand because half a gallon ended up on the floor. Didn't have to ever worry about opening the rad cap while hot because as I said the rad was leaky and there was no pressure. The gasket was so bad that going down a short hill in gear you'd have to tap the gas to blow out water that accumulated. If not you'd get to the bottom and she'd stall and you have to go through the starting procedure again. Going up a hill she'd boil.

Drove it like that for two years. Recently I just slapped in new gaskets and seals, got the head skimmed and she is as right as day now.

Head gasket is $20.

It's the labor though. He's a college student and probably has never dirtied his hands under the hood before. Probably doesn't even know how to change his own oil.

Old beaters are what those preparations were made for. It might not work. If it does, it'll only work for a while and then you'll be right back where you are right now. I don't blame you for trying it.

The repair would match or exceed the value of the vehicle

then stop driving shit vehicles.

You are right, when I made this it had just happened and I was freaked out.
It has only happened once when I floored it. I'm gonna baby the hell out of the car.
I'm gonna keep my eye on the fluids, none of them have dropped yet, so it might be something else. It also whistles when I floor it, so it could be an air flow thing.

Its just that I JUST started my senior year of EE, I barely have time to see my girlfriend, much less my head gasket.

more like 150$

Hey now, I'm damn good at mechanic work on my 88 F-150. There has never been something I couldn't do myself.

My biggest problem is I'm sooooo unfamiliar with this engine. I cant find a copy of a service manual for a 96 Toyota tercel to save my life. the only ones out there are 90$ or more

I've used it several times, it only works on engines that still have good compression on all cylinders even if the head gasket is blown. If the cylinder has poor to no compression at all the leak sealer won't do shit.

Toyota guy from yesterday. Yes, it will work temporarily, pretty much guaranteed, until it develops a leak again. If you just need to get around and don't run your car hard, you can probably get another 4-5 months out of the head gasket. After that, look up a toyota specialist and get a quote

>he takes his car to a mechanic

whoever told you sodium silicate was trying to fuck your shit up dude. They use that to destroy engines.

Also thinking about trying some.

Didn't have much mechanical Knoledge when I bought my last car.
>White smoke out of the exhaust and it runs a little rough?
>Weird? it's a cold morning and it probably needs a tune up?
Long story short don't buy a car from a clueless woman.

>Any stop leak works by making your gaskets expand and damaging your engine.
Really?

Stop leak works by conditioning the rubber so that its not as shrunken.
Lucas oil makes great products for it.

A gasket sealer, what this thread is about is more like filling all the holes with epoxy.

yes it will work. but only for 3-8 months but probably only 4.


op i hope you this shit is for broke morons who need a car for next months paycheck because the second you put this shit in, you BETTER start saving for a new engine or a new car. poor people are stupid and probably wont save though.

I have plenty of money, i just dont like spending it on something like a car that i know is just going to depreciate. Its why i bought a 90's Toyota with less than 200k on it.
Im thinking my prob might not even be head gasket since it only happened when i floor it. But that might be very wishful thinking

Im trying to figure out what engine i have, then see if i could just buy a manual for a different model with the same engine, then I would be willing to put in a head gasket

It's great if you're trying to sell a fucked up car. 1 year might be pushing it but what have you got to lose if you don't plan on fixing it the right way anyways?

Are you sure its white smoke?

I went through the same thing with my project car. Total freak out and all. Turns out it was a fucked carb and burning a bit of oil that somehow made lots of smoke that looked white.

I did use blue devil on it, but pretty much drained the oil the next week.

I had an 85 Tercel I bought in 87...mid to late 90's I threw a rod, so I went to a salvage yard and bought a replacement...then rebuilt that before I installed it...Gasket set was pretty cheap desu, your taking the joo stance way too far...

Great way to insure major failures will occur immediately

Replaced a bent valve on my truck a year ago, had the head off, another valve lapped in, and the head back in place with a new gasket in 3 fucking hours. Couple days later I torqued it down and put the rest of the stuff back on in about 2 more hours.
Don't be a faggot and just do it.

It was late late into dusk, so its very possible it could be another light color

hi anons

in the UK we have one called steelseal, i used this after replacing water pump, coolant housing and radiator on my 316i e36 and it was the gasket sealer that did the job

never had an issue since :)

seafoam

You guys are making replacing a head gasket like a walk in the park. I thought that was on of the most pain in the ass things to do to a car.

Threw a rod, and bought what to replace what? I threw a rod from lack of oil in my 94 toyota camry.

>junker car
>tercel
You dont deserve this car

I mean.... it can be. Depending on car of course.
Some easy, some bad , some very difficult.

It's fucking the simplest of things.
As long as you have not severely overheated your engine, and it still runs on all cylinders, it's going to go smoothly.

Just don't be lazy. If something is in the way and makes it hard to do it, remove it.
If you can't remove said object because it's a frame or something, remove the engine.
Removing the engine may sound hard, but it's fucking not on most fwd cars. You just remove the wires and shit and drop 4-6 k frame bolts, and lift the body off and roll it away.

>Gasket Sealant
>Not having a immaculate gasket from the get go
>mfw

I'm not op nigger

It goes in the coolant, not the oil.

Ok, after being called an idiot enough and reading a ton on the subject I think I can change the gasket. It's only a flat top 4 cylinder. I have a friend who is equally as inexperience and willing to take a day or two to do this.
I have a 3E engine, and ordered a manual.

Anyone got some good guides or videos i should look into?
Should i buy a kit, or just the gasket?
How do I figure out where everything in the kit goes?

get the headgasket, headbolts, and valvecover gasket. goes back together the opposite as you took it apart. you can probably get a Haynes repair manual for $5 at a used book store or whatever

years ago when i worked in a shop i did a clutch on one and it was easy, you may as well see if you can get a used engine for $200 and drop it in. probably less work than the HG on a Tercel

You've never done it on a diesel

have you actually been a mechanic? i dropped more transverse engines that were a royal cunt like Ford Windstar and Mazdaspeed 6 than i can count. Ford diesels you may as well just lift off the fucking cab to do a headgasket on them.

its easy to say "just do this, just do that" until its some fucking old POS where the swaybar bushing retainer bolts are seized and shit starts breaking left and right