Posted: May 20 2009 at 10:49am | IP Logged

i have a 2005 Nissan Frontier Crew Cab V6. it has about 168k miles on it. had 21k miles when i bought it 2 1/2 years ago. I do pretty well with oil changes and regular maintance because i drive so much.

Problem was monday. Truck overheated, refilled radiator, drove to work Tuesday morning and within less than 10 min drive, mostly highway, my truck was already about to overheat again. A while after it cooled down I took both caps off (radiator and overflow) and just tried to start it to see if once it came to temp the thermostat would kick in and I could see the fluid suck down. Soon as i turn it on its pushing fluid out of the radiator and oil is mixed in with the anti-freeze. Friend of mine looked at it, and seems to think its a head gasket (if lucky), or maybe cracked head or block. He says he thinks its probably worse cause typically nothing would be forcing the coolant out while its running if it was just a head gasket. I ordered a new head gasket and a book. I'm not a mechanic by any means but i think i can replace a few things on my own. Another person told me it could also be the oil cooler. Heres the few questions i have:

Has anyone had to do anything similar to their truck?

Is there just 1 head gasket or 2? i thought there would be 2, but the guy at autozone told me just 1.

Is it fairly straight forward replacement? I assume its not easy but i'm hoping its not all that hard either to do in a few hours with some basic tools

Anything else i need to check or replace when i do this?

And if anyone has any other ideas as to what i should try let me know, but from what i can find so far it seems like i need to replace head gasket first, then oil cooler next. if i do the oil cooler i'm going to replace the thermostat/water pump as well just because they are cheap parts and again seem pretty straight forward.

Posted: May 21 2009 at 12:40pm | IP Logged

Your opinion of my technical expertise is not needed or appreciated. I'm kind of stuck away from home atm and was just asking basic questions on a forum board to try and get some information. I'm about 65 miles from the nearest dealer and about 225 miles from home. The reason i asked how many head gaskets there are, is because courtesy parts website said that my vehicle only used (1) of the parts, i assumed there would be 2. Which is what i ordered.  I am going to replace the head gasket tonight/tomorrow and go from there. If anyone actually has something "constructive" to add, please do.

Posted: May 21 2009 at 10:38pm | IP Logged

dark378

Apparently Courtesy Parts does know what they are doing. Would you please advise Courtesy Parts and show them the error and straighten them out.  

Perhaps one part number fits both right and left sides?

I’ve successfully done a valve job on a V-8 Cadillac in my driveway with a full set of tools but I wouldn’t do it to my modern V-6.

lakota…  your friendly (sometimes) Moderator

Posted: May 21 2009 at 11:16pm | IP Logged

thx for the help guys, after talking to a good friend of mine that owns a shop i decided to just get it hauled back home and i'll deal with it up there.  I'm at a Ford dealership working so its not like i'm on the side of the road alone. I'm surrounded by quite a few people that are willing to help, just not too many familiar with my particular truck.  I have a guy who said hes pretty sure he could fix it for a cpl hundred if i buy all the parts. I called courtesy nissan just to double check gaskets and they said they had no idea why it listed the vehicle used only one. he said they are both identicle.