I just had the Ford C6 transmission rebuilt in my 27ft Class C motorhome. (E350, 6.9L diesel, Dana 70 4.10 rear end, towing a 4x8 enclosed trailer).
It's a situation where a friend helped pull it, we took it to a shop where it was rebuilt, and then we put it back in. It got a new torque converter and all. I pulled off the factory transmission cooler that was probably rated roughly 11k-12k vehicle weight and put on a new one rated 29k, complete with custom brackets (1/8" flat bar) so it's not riding against the A/C condenser with the crappy plastic mounts. We simply bypassed the radiator's trans cooler since it's still contaminated from the dying transmission. The owner of the trans shop insists that I don't need the radiator cooler due to the big aftermarket cooler. Plus he rattled off excuses why he didn't want to use his flusher to clean the radiator's trans cooler (the RV is big so that it would block everything in the shop from leaving, he's too busy, it might ruin the radiator)
Some folks online say otherwise, that the radiator does a lot of the cooling work because it's more efficient, specially in stop and go & mountain grade situations.
The cooler I got: https://www.haydenauto.com/en/ecatalog?partdetail=779
I put a B&M temp gauge on the hot line (output from the trans to the cooler) and it often reads 220 when city driving or on curvy back highways where there's slow downs for curves, meaning lots of speed ups and slow downs. That seems fine and dandy for the hot side. However, I have seen it climb somewhere in the ballpark of 280-300 due to stop and go on a back highway with one lane road construction plus on an uphill. I couldn't just stop or pull over to let it cool down. The gauge maxes out at 350 and thankfully it never got THAT far.... yet.
The fluid hasn't gotten dark any, but then again it hasn't even been 200 miles so far.
I will be taking it back to the shop in a couple weeks because they like to look at it again within 30 days/500 miles (or warranty is void), but due to the situation, it'll be more like 350-375 miles. Whatever, it's the best I can do. Shop owner said that was fine.
After they do whatever it is they wanna do, I plan to drain the cheap aftermarket pan that likes to seep from the drain bolt no matter what I do (I am watching the fluid level closely), remove the pan, and put on a new B&M aluminum deep pan that has a built in bung for a temp sensor, and I'll be installing a second temp gauge (Auto Meter 2640, 250*F max).
Once that's done, I might have a better idea of what the trans temps are, since I'll be able to see both the pan temp and the uncooled ATF coming out of the trans before the cooler.
Thing is too, I don't live around here. I'm a full time RVer, far from anywhere I could consider home or where I can find a cheap RV park, so if the trans does end up having problems, I'll be a long ways off and I dunno what good the warranty would be anyway. That's why I'm investing so much in extras (the big cooler, two gauges, a deep pan) so I can try to avoid overheating it at all costs. $500 in extras costs less than a week in a pet friendly motel, since I live in the motorhome and have a big dog, if it has to physically go in a shop that's where we'd have to go. Not to mention repairs/another rebuild.
Odds are, heat is what ended up killing it before... or at least was a major contributor. But admittedly, it was 37 years old with 81,479 miles when it got pulled out.
I have spoken to someone at a trans shop in another town, so they have no stake in the situation at all, and he too said the big cooler is fine, that I don't need to worry about having the radiator's cooler flushed and having it tied into the trans cooler circuit. I can't seem to find anyone who either has the flushing machine or who will touch a motorhome, despite the fact that it's a van chassis and the radiator cooler is very easy to reach.
Thoughts?
It's a situation where a friend helped pull it, we took it to a shop where it was rebuilt, and then we put it back in. It got a new torque converter and all. I pulled off the factory transmission cooler that was probably rated roughly 11k-12k vehicle weight and put on a new one rated 29k, complete with custom brackets (1/8" flat bar) so it's not riding against the A/C condenser with the crappy plastic mounts. We simply bypassed the radiator's trans cooler since it's still contaminated from the dying transmission. The owner of the trans shop insists that I don't need the radiator cooler due to the big aftermarket cooler. Plus he rattled off excuses why he didn't want to use his flusher to clean the radiator's trans cooler (the RV is big so that it would block everything in the shop from leaving, he's too busy, it might ruin the radiator)
Some folks online say otherwise, that the radiator does a lot of the cooling work because it's more efficient, specially in stop and go & mountain grade situations.
The cooler I got: https://www.haydenauto.com/en/ecatalog?partdetail=779
I put a B&M temp gauge on the hot line (output from the trans to the cooler) and it often reads 220 when city driving or on curvy back highways where there's slow downs for curves, meaning lots of speed ups and slow downs. That seems fine and dandy for the hot side. However, I have seen it climb somewhere in the ballpark of 280-300 due to stop and go on a back highway with one lane road construction plus on an uphill. I couldn't just stop or pull over to let it cool down. The gauge maxes out at 350 and thankfully it never got THAT far.... yet.
The fluid hasn't gotten dark any, but then again it hasn't even been 200 miles so far.
I will be taking it back to the shop in a couple weeks because they like to look at it again within 30 days/500 miles (or warranty is void), but due to the situation, it'll be more like 350-375 miles. Whatever, it's the best I can do. Shop owner said that was fine.
After they do whatever it is they wanna do, I plan to drain the cheap aftermarket pan that likes to seep from the drain bolt no matter what I do (I am watching the fluid level closely), remove the pan, and put on a new B&M aluminum deep pan that has a built in bung for a temp sensor, and I'll be installing a second temp gauge (Auto Meter 2640, 250*F max).
Once that's done, I might have a better idea of what the trans temps are, since I'll be able to see both the pan temp and the uncooled ATF coming out of the trans before the cooler.
Thing is too, I don't live around here. I'm a full time RVer, far from anywhere I could consider home or where I can find a cheap RV park, so if the trans does end up having problems, I'll be a long ways off and I dunno what good the warranty would be anyway. That's why I'm investing so much in extras (the big cooler, two gauges, a deep pan) so I can try to avoid overheating it at all costs. $500 in extras costs less than a week in a pet friendly motel, since I live in the motorhome and have a big dog, if it has to physically go in a shop that's where we'd have to go. Not to mention repairs/another rebuild.
Odds are, heat is what ended up killing it before... or at least was a major contributor. But admittedly, it was 37 years old with 81,479 miles when it got pulled out.
I have spoken to someone at a trans shop in another town, so they have no stake in the situation at all, and he too said the big cooler is fine, that I don't need to worry about having the radiator's cooler flushed and having it tied into the trans cooler circuit. I can't seem to find anyone who either has the flushing machine or who will touch a motorhome, despite the fact that it's a van chassis and the radiator cooler is very easy to reach.
Thoughts?
