Shop Lexus Head Gaskets

HUGE ROOKIE MISTAKE. I'm in way over my head now. i just did the head gasket and timing belt on the car was rushing went to hook up the battery and hooked it up backwards.. Yes i know the possible damages but anyone help me with where to start and look for..

How do i know if a fusible link is bad? i didn't see any smoking but it is kinda soft.
Alt fuse fried.
radio fuse fried

Replaced the radio fuse but the radio still no power to it. I have to wait for tomorrow to get to a parts store for the other fuses i found blown..


Any help at all would be great!

Start at the power distribution box and test every one of the maxi-fuses. It's hard to tell by just looking at them. You may have fried some modules too.

I started from the ground up went back to the basics and just tested power to everything and it was just the radio fuse and the 100amp alt fuse 3 bucks later! fired right up purring like a kitten. whew close one lesson learned. slow the fuck down lol

Good job!

my temperature guage shows overheating every day. the car used up to 1/4-1/2 anti freeze container every day. i have replaced the thermostat. i can hear radiator water circulating when i first start up the car. at the end of the day the water is quite hot in the overflow container, sometimes bubbling up. how do i tell if the motor is damaged? should i now replace the radiator or fans? the fans seem to work. it is a 93 lexus es300 v6 3000 motor,

Hard to say, if it is a head gasket likely not long?
Dan.

With you saying;
i can hear radiator water circulating
And;
the overflow container, sometimes bubbling up.
Is telling us that there is air in the system; how is the air getting in there?
It could be from boiling the coolant but you also said
when i first start up the car
The coolant can’t boil that fast; so just by what your saying I’m thinking a possible head gasket and the air is coming from the combustion chamber gases leaking into the cooling system.
Having to add that much coolant and you not mentioning anything about seeing an external leak, where is the coolant going; probably out the tail pipe?
Take the car in and have someone check for signs of combustion gases in the cooling system.
You could do it yourself but by the time you purchase the means too, a garage would have it tested and maybe charge you a half-hours time. That’s all I charge for this sort of test.
Have this problem sorted out ASAP; if you keep running the engine on the verge of over heating you will cause major damage. We won’t talk about what happens to an engine when a head gasket lets go completely and fills the crankcase with anti freeze but lets just say it ain’t good.
Dan.

my temperature guage shows overheating every day. the car used up to 1/4-1/2 anti freeze container every day. i have replaced the thermostat. i can hear radiator water circulating when i first start up the car. at the end of the day the water is quite hot in the overflow container, sometimes bubbling up. how do i tell if the motor is damaged? should i now replace the radiator or fans? the fans seem to work. it is a 93 lexus es300 v6 3000 motor,

Where is the coolant going? It either leaks and you should see that or a head gasket is allowing it to burn and at that volume you would see at lot of white smoke out the tailpipe, T

I've owned a 2004 automatic Lexus IS300 for about 2 years now and not too long ago I ended up getting into an accident where my radiator and fan got pushed up resulting in my hood sticking out a bit. I finally got around to taking my car apart and lowering the inside base to get the radiator and fan lower to get my hood back in place which was a success. I then put everything back into place but I completely forgot I drained out the radiator before doing so and I forgot to completely fill in the radiator with fluid/water. I then decided to drive out of town for about an hour. I was 30mins into my destination and next thing you know I came to a sudden brake, I was driving about 65-80 for a good half hour. Once I slightly tapped on the brake next thing you know my car started to steam like crazy from the hood and I pulled off onto the side of the freeway immediately. It was steaming so much it looked like cheech and chong's was smoking in my hood @.@ As I tried to pull over on the side of the road I could feel my wheel stiffening up. As soon as I pulled over I opened up my hood to let it air out all the steam. (The steam was white) I waited a bit for a tow truck to come pick up my car and let the car cool down to check the results. There was white residue of some type all over the insides and i noticed that the hose connected to the radiator that was lightweight slipping off the radiator. I tried to tighten it and it didnt work so next thing I did was unhook the hose. What I discovered when I unhooked the hose the piping from the radiator was cracking and chipping off and the pipe seemed to be flaking. I was wondering if anyone knows the results of driving on low radiator fluid and what I may have to do to fix this up. I probably missed out on some key facts but everything I could think of was off the top of my head. Can someone help me and tell me what I could possibly do to fix this?? Sorry for this being all over the place I'm really worried about my car One last thing I forgot to mention while I was pulling over the steam was coming out of the hood, I couldnt tell if there was steam coming out of my exhaust or if it was because so much steam was coming from the hood. I was wondering If you could also give me an estimate on a blown head gasket if that is the situation here thank you~

This is not going to have a good result. Driving a car until temperature makes it stop usually results in severe internal damage. They can handle a lot of things but extreme heat is not one of them.

You need a new engine. You melted this one down. Its an expensive mistake unfortunately.

Would driving on minimum radiator fluid really cause my engine to completely get melted resulting in internal damages? Ill make sure to get it checked by a professional ASAP though.
You need a new engine. You melted this one down. Its an expensive mistake unfortunately.

I don't think anyone feels this was done intentionally. Obviously the poster feels foolish for such a small oversight that is now a big money item. Even us pros have had some epic fails at some point in time in our careers. We've overlooked some small thing and it came back to bite us bad. Really hits your pride. If you think of it, with low enough coolant level the temp sensor might've read low since it was in air not water. I'm shocked he made it as far as he did before meltdown. But now the damage is done and the lesson is costly.

We have all seen this same type of scenario many times as we all work in shops. I'm sorry to tell you that the hopeful answer of a head gasket is not likely to be on the table. You locked up a red-hot motor. This is a goner. Its the details that make the difference in a job done right and a disaster, as you now see. Its checking your work over prior to startup that stops a lot of that. Real similar to the carpenter's saying "measure twice, cut once."