So Wednesday morning on my regular routine my card drastically overheated, I was able to shut it down on time but I am very certain that the head gasket is blown. Two weeks ago I replaced the water pump thermostat radiator cap and timing belt. I will be diagnose the engine completely this weekend to determine the damage.

Now if it's the head gasket that's damaged!
what else should I replace since I will have half the engine apart?

 

2J or 1UZ?

They are both very picky with air in the system, it would easily overheat if so. The 2JZ headgaskets are metal so they are not easily blown without boost.

 

Lol it would help if I stated which model I had, it's a 2jz

So O.E.M. are metal? well I am very certain that it's the head gasket!

 

Why so certain? Do you have coolant in the oil?

Can I ask why you wouldn't have replaced the head gasket while doing everything else just recently?

A blown head gasket is the worst case scenario so as its possible to be the HG, overheating is a symptom caused by many issues. Could be air bubbles in the coolant system, could be a bad thermostat, blown water pump etc.. Luckily the 2J isn't too hard to take apart so if you are hell bent on doing a HG job then by all means, grab a new one and attack it. I would normally say replace your timing belt and water pump at the same time but if they already did then just grab a gasket.

 

I didn't do it because I wasn't experiencing any issues with the engine over heating, my harmonic balancer went bad and damaged my water pump so the water pump started to leak and I caught it on time before it ever over heated.
Since I had to remove the timing belt while changing the water pump I replaced the belt with new thermostat and radiator cap. Why change the headgasket when its not damaged! I am not even boosting so I figured the headgasket was fine.
I will determine this weekend to know what exactly is causing it to over heat!.

 

Gotcha yeah, makes sense. Yeah find some more symptoms but at this point, you might as well replace it and have piece of mind for like 100k more miles if its been overheating.

 

Very true, I just don't feel like tearing everything apart lol, I know how to do it but i'm just being lazy lol, if I end up doing it maybe I will take some images or video of the process!