'88 MR2 Water out exhaust

[832ark]

Just a quick one, my mate's MR2 developed a missfire last night and then a cloud of steam out of the exhaust. He pulled over to find that its dumped a load of coolant out the exhaust. Can anyone with knowledge of the 4A-GE engine shed any light? Clearly coolant has entered the combustion chamber, but is it likely to be as simple as a headgasket failure or something more sinister? I thought these were pretty bomb proof. Just wanting a heads up of what horrors we're likely to find once we pull the head.

Many thanks in advance

Al

[Countdown]

Sounds like classic HGF to me.

Are you getting bubbling in the header tank ?

[832ark]

That's what I thought, not sure about the bubbling as I haven't seen it. I just have a nasty feeling that I'm going to be involved in fixing it