hi iam new to this forum and read this thread twice as part of my hg research.first time i only read it to the point you got it running and tought everything was great after that for years to come ,second time i noticed that there are more pages on the thread and i am sorry to hear that you had more trouble with it.anyhow you seem to be a patient guy about it.
very nice work on the thread jamie!big help in case i decide to do it.
so here is my story:
i have a 95 t-100 with arund 125k on it which always been great to me never had any major problem and well maintened at least since 98.i decided to fix the leaking valvecover gasket which made a mess of the outside of the engine/i guess this does not fall under "well maintened"/.anyway i got so far into it that the intake plenum is off to get to everything properly,replacing wp and all waterhoses/i belive i found 10 of them/.i am thinking to do hg as preventative maintenance altough never had any problems except for one time when temp gauge went above normal/did not redline/ due to a stock thermostat when coolant was flushed and replace at 85k.and lately water seems to disappear from overflow tank but never looked into this because it was very slow and never seen or smelled any coolant.i believe the hg is still factory.how can i tell if it is not?were all year 3.4's included in the hg recall?i know preventative maintenance for hg may sound unusual but i have big plans for my truck and tring to fix and replace anything questionable. i am going to use the truck in a cross-country rally in amateur class in europe.one of the reason i have chosen this truck was the 3.4 that has enough hp and tourqe.but now i am starting to have second toughts about it especially since i talked to machine shop people and they said this was one of the biggest pieces of crap toyota ever made, they see cracked heads 9 out of 10 and it would be a big can of worm to open .i was shocked when i heard that.anyway i still love my 3.4 it is just so crisp and punchy.
so i would like to hear anyones opinion if should the existing hg will do fine as long as my cooling system does not fail or will a new hg hold up better?
incase i decide to do the job i would like to have questions on the how...
thanks for reading my post