I've already read the how to in the stickies, but still have these questions.
I decided to change my thermostat because my car was taking a real long time to warm up. So I bought one from the dealership for about $20. I looked at it and I asked if there was a gasket. The parts guy said thatg these ones dont have a gasket, and just to use silicone.

So I need advice & tips on changing the thermostat. So since there is now thermostat gasket, what kind of gasket sealer do I use?? And do I just put it around the edge of the housing, or on the surface of the housing itself????? Any other tips/advice???

 

use permatex to seal it.... put the permatex on the thermostat surface itself and make sure u get the old sealant off the block. its pretty straight forward.

 

Yea there is a gasket, you can use regular silicone from an auto parts store to seal it up. Just let them know your doing a thermostat, they'll most likely give you a blue silicone... red is high heat, black is pretty much all around purpose and blue is for thermostats.

 

i reused my gasket but used some grey silicone as well just in case

 

Thats the problem with dealers there is a steel gasket because i just changedd mine.

 

The Nissan gasket is 13050-31U00. It is thin and made of metal.

 

yaa .. i just bought thermostat and gasket as well from the nissan dealer ... for 4th gen

 

Ok thanks for all the advice guys. I called the dealership back and they said they had it in stock and it was like $5.50. I didnt feel like driving all the way back there.

So I went to 2 parts store and only one of them had the gasket. But it was a regular fell-pro gasket. So i bought it for $1, and also bought some water pump/thermostat gasket maker. I took out the old thermostat, (really easy compared to the 3rd gen, I dont know why they didnt think of the idea of attaching the thermostat to the housing before, its so much easier than trying to make the but needle thingy point up.)

anyways while I was taking it out I was kinda scared of the coolant going into the alternator since it is right underneath the t-stat, so I covered the alternator with a plastic bag. Then after I took off the t-stat, I realized that the original gasket was in good condition, so I cleaned it up, and used regular black RTV silicone on both sides of it to attach it to the block and the housing. And thats it, much easier than other cars. I didnt even drain the coolant, and only ~~1 qt. came out of the t-stat place on tha block.
Thanks for ALLLLLLLL the advice everyone...

 

all this talk is inspiring me to change mine one of these days before the winter. glad to hear it went well and isn't too bad.