Attention: TDR Forum Junkies I had an interesting failure this past week while towing my boat with the 11' camper in the bed.
My very pregnant wife can barely make it between rest stops so I get lots of chances to check on things. Anyway, at one of these stops I was checking the trailer tires and brakes and noticed the front of the boat was "moist" (this is on a 95 deg day in Eastern Wa). It turned out to be automatic transmission fluid.
I thought we were toast considering it was 40 miles from any reasonable sized town. I found the forward most location of the fluid to be at the torque converter cooler located on the drivers side of the engine block. I first thought it was just a fitting that had worked loose but a couple of wrenches confirmed that it was tight.
It took 14 quarts of fluid and lots of stops to limp 39 miles into the next town (yea... the boat was a mess). And get this. . while we were pulling into the truck stop parking lot the fitting boss on the cooler completely failed. I can't believe it held out until then. I'm convinced it was over-torqued at the factory.
No dealer in town so I bought some copper tubing and lots of misc fittings and bypassed the cooler.
We finished out our vacation and put another 300 miles on it with the cooler bypassed. I watched the transmission temp gauge like a hawk the whole time, but it never went above 190 deg.
Why do they call this a "cooler" anyway? It looks to me like it take more heat from the engine oil than it could get rid of, but maybe I'm wrong.
Also, has anyone ever used Dextron III fluid and added the friction modifier? That was the only fluid available. ATF +4 is VERY difficult to find in small towns, NAPA didn't even have it.
Truck is scheduled in tomorrow to get the cooler replaced and I think I'm going to see if the dealer will flush the system under warranty. If not, I may consider paying to have it done, unless if can figure a reliable way to do it myself.
My very pregnant wife can barely make it between rest stops so I get lots of chances to check on things. Anyway, at one of these stops I was checking the trailer tires and brakes and noticed the front of the boat was "moist" (this is on a 95 deg day in Eastern Wa). It turned out to be automatic transmission fluid.
I thought we were toast considering it was 40 miles from any reasonable sized town. I found the forward most location of the fluid to be at the torque converter cooler located on the drivers side of the engine block. I first thought it was just a fitting that had worked loose but a couple of wrenches confirmed that it was tight.
It took 14 quarts of fluid and lots of stops to limp 39 miles into the next town (yea... the boat was a mess). And get this. . while we were pulling into the truck stop parking lot the fitting boss on the cooler completely failed. I can't believe it held out until then. I'm convinced it was over-torqued at the factory.
No dealer in town so I bought some copper tubing and lots of misc fittings and bypassed the cooler.
We finished out our vacation and put another 300 miles on it with the cooler bypassed. I watched the transmission temp gauge like a hawk the whole time, but it never went above 190 deg.
Why do they call this a "cooler" anyway? It looks to me like it take more heat from the engine oil than it could get rid of, but maybe I'm wrong.
Also, has anyone ever used Dextron III fluid and added the friction modifier? That was the only fluid available. ATF +4 is VERY difficult to find in small towns, NAPA didn't even have it.
Truck is scheduled in tomorrow to get the cooler replaced and I think I'm going to see if the dealer will flush the system under warranty. If not, I may consider paying to have it done, unless if can figure a reliable way to do it myself.
