msimonov

iTrader: (5)

What exactly is the purpose of the jiggle pin in the thermostat? What happens if you use a thermostat without it?

I had my wife order some parts for on Friday morning for a weekend project I was planning. The guys at the auto parts place decided they would help me out and order some cheaper parts, not what I had on the list. They order a thermostat without the jiggle pin. I went ahead did the radiator swap project on Saturday as planned and used the thermostat they ordered. The right one was not available until Sunday. The swap worked out great. The car is rock solid at 1/3 up the temp gage. The cooling system has never worked this well. I am just trying to gage how urgent it is that I swap out the non-jiggle pin thermostat with the right one.

anthrax

If I understand the importance of the OEM theristat corectly, it is rather important in the fuction of the cooling system. The need for an OEM thermostat has been covered rather exstensivly. A quick search should yield all the informaotin you need.

The positoin of the pin in the installation is important also.

It has something to do with coolant buypassing the engin or some such thing.

Rex4Life

I got my thermostat from VB and it did not have the jiggle pin in it. I read up on it and found that the pin/hole is for bleeding air back thru the system. I ended up buying an OEM unit and installing it before I started up the rebuild. I never ran with the thermostat without the jiggle pin so I don't know if there would be problems.

Remember overheating can be fatal to a rotary, so IMHO, it wasn't worth it to go cheap on that part.

Scott

1stgen_tn

From my understanding, Nissan likes vertically mounted thermostats as opposed to a horizontally mounted like the rotary. If vertically mounted (I'm using Nissan for example b/c I've owned/worked on many) it must have a "jiggler" to "burp" when necessary. Jiggler must always be placed in the 12 o'clock position to work right.

On the rotary, I don't see where it would be necessary.

Oh, and Nissan can suck it b/c I'm currently doing my 3rd timing belt job and you can only get to the water pump and thermo stat when you've got the timing belt cover off. BIG pain in the butt, ecspecially for FWD vehicles. Luckily, I've always needed to do a timing belt replacement BEFORE needing to replace water pump or thermostat.

Gosh I love rotaries!!!!

Jeff20B

iTrader: (13)

Some people drill a 1/16" hole in the thermostat basically where the jiggle pin would have been. The idea here is to try to reduce the temperature shock from being too great when the thermostat finally opens and sends a bunch of heated water through a cold radiator. It also has a burp feature, which is nice if you're doing any sort of heater core or coolant type job, because refilling the rad with coolant takes a little less time.

Yes, Nissans suck to try to work on. Never again for me.