Hello everyone,

I apologize, this is a novel:

I'm a long time member - used to be a frequent poster but have been MIA for quite awhile. I hate to come back only when I need something, but I've had a major problem and need some assistance. I have a 2007 Versa Hatchback with the CVT transmission. I bought the car in July of 2007 and have put just shy of 120k miles on it (I commute 85 miles each way back and forth to work everyday). I love the car and know I purchased the right one for my drive.

On a recent trip to the beach I blew the upper radiator hose. Since the Versa doesn't have a temperature gauge, I was oblivious to this until the "idiot light" came on, alerting me that the car was too hot. I actually watched the light turn on and pulled the car over immediately, but it was too late. I got a tow home, replaced the hose and when I went to add more coolant, I was very upset to discover about a half a quart of oil in the radiator.

I kept my fingers crossed, drained and flushed the cooling system, topped off the coolant again and drove it to work the next day. By the time I got to work and let the engine cool down, there was another half a quart of oil on top of the coolant in the overflow tank. On my way home that day, it started running terrible, mis-firing and sputtering. The funny part is, I never had any coolant in the oil, only oil in the coolant.

I immediately assumed the head gasket was blown and started looking into having the engine rebuilt. Trouble is, by the time you pay for the gasket kit, machine the head and the block, spend three weeks having it torn apart and at the machine shop, and pay for the labor or do it yourself, it's not worth the headache and money. So.... I searched for an engine from a salvaged car and was fortunate enough to find one for $500 with only 20k miles on it. I purchased this and paid a friend of mine who's a mechanic at a local Nissan dealership to put it in for me.

He called me about 3 hours into the job to let me know the radiator was bad as well and I picked one up from the same salvager for $135 (couldn't get one from the dealer or the parts stores the same day) and brought it over to him. As he was finishing the job and putting the transmission back on the engine, he pulled the flywheel off and discovered coolant all over the inside of the CVT. Turns out the inside of the radiator also warped, allowing the CVT fluid and the coolant to mix with one another and send coolant to the transmission. Fortunately, Nissan replaced the transmission under warranty (thanks to the 120k mile extension on the CVTs) but in the end it still set me back about $1400 for the engine, gaskets (intake manifold, exhaust manifold, water pump, exhaust donuts, etc) and labor. Not bad at all considering the amount of work that was done.

I got the car back today and it's running like a top - just like it's brand new again. So, sob-story aside, my question is this: Has anyone else had a similar experience, blowing a hose and ruining an engine? More importantly, has anyone installed a water temp gauge in their V yet? I refuse to commute one more day until I install one and don't really know what it entails. I'm pretty mechanically inclined and do most of my own maintainence (oil changes, etc). I found a few gauges online and most of them include a sender, but I don't really know where I should put the sender or how to tap it into the system. Someone else was also telling me I could tap into the car's existing temperature sensor (it definately has one, it just doesn't have a gauge) but was wondering if anyone else has tried this? I did a search for several keywords related to this but couldn't really find anything.

Thanks to everyone for your help and sorry for the long post.

sorry to hear the radiator caused such a big problem. I don't know how to use the stock sender to run an extra gauges, but there are kits to put inline in one of your radiator hoses. They come with a sender unit that you cut the hose and put it it inline.

What about ScangaugeII which plugs into the OBD2 port. I know it can display temperature among others, however, I do not know if it can be programed to alarm. Hopefully others who have installed it can answer.

Frank 2009 Versas S sedan MT-6 with 14800 miles. 34 MPG avg over all these miles

Every stock gauge in a car has 3 settings (cold, normal, and you're screwed). I blew a headgasket back around '03 when the water pump failed and released all the coolant.

You can't wire in an aftermarket gauge to the stock sender, aftermarket needs its own sending unit.

Go with a Scangauge 2. Its much easier than sourcing all the small pieces to get an aftermarket temp gauge installed.

Well thanks for your input everyone. I considered the scangauge, but I was actually able to install an aftermarket temperature gauge yesterday. I went with an autometer pro-comp 4337 like this one:

The gauge came with the sending unit. I went to a local home store and purchased a small 1/8" brass tee and installed it into the return line for the coolant from the throttle body and mounted the sender in there. Grounded the sender (since it wasn't mounted directely to the engine), ran the sender wire through the fire wall and mounted the gauge on the front driver-side a-pillar, just above the tweeter. It came out great and works like charm!

The car seems to run right around 180-185 degrees consistently. Anyone else have the same reading on a scangauge? Just curious.

Just make sure there are no leaks on that Tee fitting.

Scangauge will read from where the stock sensor is. There would be a slight difference in what it reads and where your aftermarket sender is. But 180-200 degs is normal operating temp.

Yeah I could see the stock sensor in the thermostat housing when I was intalling mine. I really wanted to drill a hole in the housing and tap it for a 1/8" NPT thred and mount the new sender right in it but it didn't really look like there was enough room.

I sealed the T fitting really good with teflon tape where the sender threads in and where the two hose barbs thread in on either end. I also used some really good clamps and tightened them ALOT where the hose feeds into the barbs. I'm actually a little more worried about how how the T fitting is going to get. The hose I cut into was a really thick hose with a second layer of jacketing around it (a thin rubber one) because it runs right next to the fuel line before it feeds into the fuel rail. I cut the jacketing off of the old hose piece that I removed and wrapped one piece of it around the fuel line and another one accross the bottom of the T. However, it still seems to be getting pretty hot and as you know, heat next to fuel = bad news.

So I'm going to keep an eye on it and if it's getting too warm, I might have to relocate the T fitting to somewhere else or wrap it up with some header insulation or something.

Have any pics? thanks