Transmission cooler line dilemma

[DFully]

I own a 2006 4.6L 3 Valve explorer with the 6R60 transmission, recently my radiator cracked along the top of the plastic causing a substantial leak. Now radiators are sold out ado the wait time is pretty good amount of time not having any wheels. I unfortunately could not wait the required time to stick with the Motorcraft radiator so instead I ordered the mishimoto OEM direct replacement with the lifetime warranty. I’ve used the warranty once already due to the shipping being so roughly handled the radiator was bent and leaked out before I even installed it so I waited another 3 weeks to get the replacement and after installing it everything was great ran good as new but after a few hundred miles I noticed a fairly small leak, I investigated further and I soon found out the leak was no longer a small one but a rather moderate and growing one. The leak I was able to diagnose as the transmission cooler line connector on the driver side was the culprit and after some research I found that the mishimoto radiators use the same cheap connectors as most of the non Motorcraft radiators use with only one o-ring located inside rather than two.

My question is if I buy the dorman replacement will the thread size fit the mishimoto or how do I fix this dilemma? And to flush the intercooler what all is required since I’ll have to drain both coolant and the intercooler in order to properly install the dorman replacement?

 

[CDW6212R]

The ATF cooler inside the radiator is not an intercooler, it's just a cooler. That does not need to be flushed unless the transmission had failed, and then the answer would be to install an external filter in the ATF line from that cooler, to protect the new trans from debris of the failed trans.

The ATF fittings on the radiator should be usable with the lines, what is wrong with those you have? Don't simply dog the new part or other brands, clearly state the problem, pictures would help. As I said before, the OEM lines use o-rings inside the fittings, those should not be reused. Have you replaced those with the right size of new o-rings?

 

[Bazz270]

It is not even a cooler.its a trasmission fluid preheater

 

[CDW6212R]

It is not even a cooler.its a trasmission fluid preheater

The word cooler describes the part accurately, an intercooler is a supercharging device which cools the intake air going into the engine.

The radiator trans cooler both heats and cools the ATF, it's intended to do both, without it transmissions would overheat. How much hot coolant is running through that cooler when the engine is not warmed up? Who waits until their vehicle is warmed up and then longer, because it takes much longer to also heat the coolant outside of the engine(in the radiator), before they begin to drive the vehicle? The amount of heating of ATF by that cooler, is very minimal. You create more ATF heat by driving the vehicle, the transmission has a very hard job.

 

[Bazz270]

for proper heat transfer (atf cooling via engine radiator - energy transfer direction from atf liquid to engine coolant),engine coolant temperature should be below atf liquid temperature.

are you sure that engine coolant temperature will be below transmission atf temp ?

 

[CDW6212R]

Yes, when running hard the ATF will often go above the thermostat rating. That isn't normal operating cruising down the road conditions, but it happens. ATF ideally should be well below coolant temps, maybe 150* would be a great limit. The radiator cooler is mainly there to save a trans from severe conditions.

People often discuss bypassing the radiator cooler, but you have to provide another method to cool the ATF. Most external OEM coolers are too small for severe duty, so an owner would have to upgrade the other cooler, before bypassing the radiator. Then you have no ATF heating ever, so a thermostat bypass would be ideal, but those are only made for engine oil(180* or more).