Tranny cooler questions

[colindo94]

I would like to save the life of my tranny a little longer and I know that keeping the heat down will help a lot. What is the best way to install a tranny cooler along with the stock cooler. Were is a good place to mount it so it stays cool, but doesn't block airflow to the radiator? And would a seperate electric fan along with the stock fan help with keeping everything cool at low speeds 4lo in the summer? Ihave researched this a bit and found some information, but got a lot of different ideas and kinda confussed myself so I thought I would ask again. What would be a good cooler to get also?

 

[BrooklynBay]

The cooler goes in front of the condenser. Get the largest size you could. I don't know if there is any room, but on some foreign cars (maybe Mercedes) they have an electric pusher fan in front of the condenser to help assist cooling. The tube, and fin style coolers are the most common (they are the cheapest). There is another type called a stacked plate which is a heavy duty version, and cost more. JC Whitney sells this type. The cooler goes in series with your stock cooler which is part of the radiator.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Here is a listing of a few models: http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/...partial/N-10101/tf-Browse/s-10101/Ntk-AllText. They call them fin, and plate coolers on this website. Here's a picture of it:

 

[aldive]

Bt all means go with a stacked plate cooler.

 

[manaen]

One thing to add to BB's comments, the stacked plate coolers are the best to get for a few reasons.

1) they do not have as much of a flow restriction due to the multi-passage design. Compared to the tube and fin ones which have only one passage for the fluid to flow through.
2) they cool so much better than the tube and fin type since the internal surface area is much larger. Heat transfers much faster from the fluid to the outside air.
3) they hold more oil which increases your fluid capacity which is always good.

In addition to the cooler you may also want to install an external filter in the cooling line. Ford recommends this, and if you do a few searches here you will see that many people here really think highly of the external filters.

And if you really want to know what is going on in your tranny, think about adding a temp gauge to see where things are running.

Other than those things, regular fluid changes are key to transmission longevity. Oh and go to full synthetic fluid which is not as susceptible to high temp breakdown.

 

[Maniak]

For a small pusher fan, look at the fans from a Geo Prism (95)/toyota Corolla.

Its about 10" and is in a metal cage..

I have the fan in front of a cooler (I actually have 2 coolers, one in front of the other)



~Mark

 

[colindo94]

Now that is about the exact setup I was looking for. Did you get rid of the AC condinser or did your truck not come with AC?

 

[Maniak]

I actually have a smallish plate cooler in front of the tube/fin cooler in front of the a/c condensor in front of the radiator....

I am going to change it soon.. I'm going to take out the tube/fin style cooler and put in a bigger plate cooler. The plate cooler will be at least 5" taller so all of the fan will be over the cooler. this will leave 1/2 of the radiator/condensor more clear than it is now. (I "might" put an aux cooler in front of them, but I'll start w/out it). Plate coolers work better than tube/fin so I figure a big plate will work better than a plate+tube/fin especially since putting coolers behind others cuts their efficiency(sp?)

As I have it now, if I let the truck idle too long with the a/c on it will get very hot.. (not overheat, but much hotter than I like.. 195F is between the R and M on the guage and it will go up to the A/L when idling.

Keep in mind, I'm in southern Az, so it gets hot here (It was 107F or so yesterday).

~Mark

 

[BrooklynBay]

How hot does it run with 2 fans? What temperature does your pusher fan turn on at? Do you also have an electric fan in front of the engine to replace the thermostatic belt driven fan? If so, do both fans turn on simultaneously?

 

[Maniak]

I use the factory belt driven fan for main cooling and the single 10" fan for the trans coolers.

The belt driven fan has a tight fan clutch (its for an RV application). I hear the fan more than the engine most of the time when I'm dirving around town.

The electric (trans cooler fan) runs whenever the transmission is not in lockup mode. That means in general, its not running at speeds over 45mph.

The pan temp seems to average 70 degrees above ambient temp on the freeway and 80 degrees above ambient temp around town (85 degrees above ambient in really bad stop/start traffic).

Remember, I have a 700r4 transmission with a somewhat high stall converter (it stalls around 2700 rpms) which doesn't help my temps.. But the fan did make a big difference in my trans temps around town (seems to be a bigger change than adding the 2nd cooler, which I did before I got the fan).

In the Arizona heat, my trans fluid pan temp seems to run between 160-185 or so in summer. Every few oil changes I drop the fluid in the pan and replace it. I change the filter about once every 6-9 months (when I feel like it but at least once a year). The fluid has always come out bright red and with no burnt smell. I use mobile 1 synthetic trans fluid and have about 60k or so miles on this transmission (I think thats just over 2 years, I'd have to look at when I got the transmission installed).

~Mark

 

[colindo94]

Nice, Did you use the advanced adapter to fit that tranny to your 4.0?

 

[Maniak]

Yup.. I used the advanced adapters kit to put the 700r4 in.. Once I got the transmission built correctly, it been stable (first one I put in wasn't built correctly).


~Mark

 

[colindo94]

While doing some other things to the explorer I noticed that the stock tranny cooler is seperate from the radiator. I always figuared that it was incorperated with the stock radiator. The cooler is on the drivers side between the grill and the radiator. SO with that said, where would the best place be to mount another cooler? Or would I just completly replace the stock unit with a better cooler.

 

[aldive]

There is also a cooler within the radiator.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Connect it in series with the cooler which is part of the radiator, and mount it in front of the condenser as shown in the above picture.