6R60 trans fluid temp ('06-'10 V8 only please)

[thebrakeman]

The 6R60 6-speed in the V8 truck behaves much different than the 5-speed in the V6 truck. So please only provide input in this thread for the '06-'10 6R60 6-speed. Thanks.

If you monitor your trans temps on the 6-speed, please provide you typical temps under different conditions:

Here are mine:
170F - Warmed up, lightly loaded.
185F - Warmed up, fully loaded (but not towing)
215F - Warmed up, loaded, and towing 5000 lbs camper
220-225F - Short spikes while towing

 

[Explorer_PL]

Where do you read the trans temp ?

 

[thebrakeman]

You need to add a trans temp gauge (physically tap into the trans cooler lines), or a plug-in OBDII scantool (accesses the vehicle management system).

I use the ScanGauge2.

 

[Explorer_PL]

If I had any of those I could help. Just last weekend I towed a 4000 lbs trailer with roof shingles for 60 miles.
Mine is 06 v8 with 118k miles.

 

[Bill MacLeod]

From my Scangauge 2:

Ambient air temp of 80 to 90 F, around town will get up to 175/185 fairly quickly. On long road trips, runs at same temp as above, but takes much longer to reach 175. In stop and go traffic will run 185/190.

As a side note, never seen water temp above 207 F.

No towing or heavy loads.

 

[waskly]

tans temp operating temp for this truck is 185, light driving, cruise, straight roads will cool it down to sub operating temps, the trans cooler works well.

 

[thebrakeman]

Thanks, Bill. Seems like our non-towing temps are the same.
waskly (wabbit?) - I think I heard that there is a valve that doesn't open until around 180-185F which only then allows trans coolant to flow to the external cooler. That accounts for the quick warm up that Bill spoke of.

 

[JDC518]

I tow a 21" TT ~ 3800 to 4000lbs 07 4.6 6r60

I have also installed a AEROForce OBDII gauge to monitor my trans and engine temps and other things.

My tans temp seem to settle in around 185 to 190's w/o loads
and go up to 195 -205 when towing w.OD off.
Towing in OD they can start to go up 210 -215 (too high)

My Concern is that my engine temp goes up 210 - 215 while towing w/ OD off driving around 65mph

What engine temp do you see while towing OD on /off

JDC518:exp:

 

[thebrakeman]

My Scangauge let's me monitor 4 gages at a time. I used to watch trans temp, engine temp, convertor slip, and gear ratio. But the engine temp always stayed below 200F, so I changed that slot to monitor % engine lode.

I have been staying in OD most of the time, shifting only if the trans is hunting. So that's probably why my engine temps are lower. Part of me thinks I might as well stay out of OD, since it doesn't seem to affect mpg too much. But I hate that it locks out both 5th and 6th. Very stupid of Ford to not offer full manual control. Introducing the 6-speed in 2006, they could have done that.

If we could simply lock out 6th, I'm sure it would be happy running in 5th gear while towing, and have the torque convertor locked. In fact, when I run in OD, it will actually select 5th much of the time, but it will then go to 6th going downhill, then need 5th-unlocked (or 4th) to go uphill.

 

[NoFear95]

Run the scangauge II on my 2006 V8. I live in Sunny Arizona so my temps tend to be a bit higher...but considering its 105 in 10 pm.. Anyway, it is usually around 170ish-185 around town no towing. Only time it spiked to 205 was going up a 6% grade for about 8 miles. It was over 100 degrees...doing about 75 with 6 people in the car with both ac running full blast.

 

[JDC518]

I feel the same way, this trans should only lock out 6th gear w/OD off.

My explorer seems to run great towing in 5th gear, except for the extra trans temp because it does not lock up the torque converter until its in 6th

Someone should have a solution for this trans.

I know that the stock thermostat is a 192F, Are u running something lower ??


JDC518

 

[thebrakeman]

I have not changed the thermostat.
Yes, I notice as well that the convertor does not seem to lock in 5th. Scangauge is always showing some amount of slip while in 5th.
In fact, when towing, I rarely have seen it lock up when I lock out OD and have it in 4th. I'm questioning the codes I got from Scangauge for SLP.

 

[donstevens]

BrakeMan -

Can you provide some detail on the scan guage? What is it? Where to find it? How much?

I recently towed an open 5000 lb car trailer for the first time (thanks for the advice on the Prodigy P2 by the way. It works great) with my 06, V8, 6R60. I had no way to monitor temperatures so I have no idea what they were. The water Temp guage did not waiver a bit (I thought it might considering the trans cooler is in front of the radiator) in 90+ Florida heat.

My trans did hunt around quite a bit. We don't have much natural terrain hills in this part of FL but on interstate grades (particularly the Sunshine Skyway) the trans huntedaround quite a bit. I did play a round with the OD button and did find the shift way back to 4th annoying. Too many engine revs.

On level ground once I found a couple of speeds (60 on the two lane roads and 70 in the interstate) where the truck was happy it stayed in gear (I am assuming 5th) quite well and I was gettng an indicated 13.7 mpg. I was fairly pleased with that.

I did notice that only a slight head wind could make a huge difference in rpm/mileage.

Don

 

[thebrakeman]

Check out www.scangauge.com.
I have the Scangauge II (with X-gauge), which has been out for many years, and has a good amount of happy users on many vehicles and chat sites. I got mine from CampingWorld ($150 minus my 10% club discount). Autozone also sells them.
The Scangauge-e looks to be a new unit, for around $100. I'd never heard of it until I started poking around to answer your post. It appears to be for people only interested in fuel-economy and trip computer needs. It does have digital gauges, but it does not have the X-gauge function, which lets you dig into your vehicle and pull out data that isn't included in the standard gauges. And it just so happens that trans fluid temperature does not show up as a standard gauge for our 4th gen trucks. You need the X-guage feature to program that in, and that means you need the fully optioned "Scanguage II".

The site has a feature comparison chart at the top.

I've also used the code scan feature recently, when I had a bad spark plug (throwing check engine light, pulled misfire code). It saved me several trips to Advance Auto, while diagnosing the problem, since I could check codes myself.

 

[donstevens]

Interseting stuff. Can you monitor engine oil temp as well? That might be useful when towing as well.

Has anybody checked into reflashing the OBD to enable the trans to stay in 5th / locked converter longer? In simple situations (like a small grade or a slight head wind) I think keeping it locked in 5t/6th could save a lot of fuel.

Don

 

[thebrakeman]

trans temp, engine oil temp, intake air temp, fuel pressures, torque convertor slip, gear ratio (not always easy to tell with a 6 speed), % engine load at rpm, air/fuel ratios, etc, etc, etc

Hit the support center link at the top of that page in my last post. There you'll find other links to specific X-gage programming codes. The only one that didn't work for my was torque convertor slip. It was supposed to give you a ratio of convertor input speed vs output speed (locked convertor = 1; greater than 1 = slipping). I posted on a chatsite somewhere (maybe here?) and a customer service guy from Linear Logic (makes scangauge) found it and provided me with an alternate set of codes. It provided "Input speed - Output speed" in rpm. So anything greater than 0 is unlocked.

 

[psycareyo]

So you can just plug the scangauge2 into the OBII and it will read trans temp?

 

[thebrakeman]

I can't remember. I'll check tonight (DW drives the Mounty during the week).
Some of the gages come up automatically. Others you teach the unit how to pull the information using the codes on that website.

 

[Bill MacLeod]

So you can just plug the scangauge2 into the OBII and it will read trans temp?

NO

You have to program an optional set of code #'s for it to read trans temp.
This works on my 06, but not on my 99. So must be something to do with CAN.

 

[feetwet]

I noticed there is an ELM327 bluetooth device for about $20 - $30 on amazon or ebay that will connect to your android phone using an app called Torque that will do some of the same stuff as scanguage 2.