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[acura]

Anyone ever fitted one of these? I had a Kenlowe one on my old Nissan Maxima for towing as the Max had an inherently fragile Autobox. I never had a failure in many years of towing with it so it could be down to that.

Just dug it out of the garage and thinking of fitting it to the mig, it goes in series with the radiator cooler. I guess it can only help and it's more use than sitting in the garage.

Anyone any thoughts?  :-/

[tunnie]

no need, auto Omegas already have an oil cooler 

[bigtow]

no need, auto Omegas already have an oil cooler 

Surley it can't hurt to have a bit extra cooling plus more oil must be a good thing ?

[acura]

no need, auto Omegas already have an oil cooler 

Yep, the one in the radiator I know. Most (all) autos have this but there is agreement by SOME that this isn't adequate for hard work and the fluid can overheat causing seal problems and loss of lubricating properties which can cause clutch failure etc. I'm not enlightened enough to really comment but aftermarket cooler manufacturers claim that a 13 row (for instance) cooler can reduce fluid temps by 25%. May just be a sales ploy. Perhaps bigtow has a point as well. Just interested to see what you guys thought. 

[tunnie]

Change the fluid if your worried about performance of the oil, bolting on a pattern cooler after GM spent millions on car design its not going to add anything.

Plenty of OOF'ers tow with standard setup without issues 

[acura]

Cheers Tunnie, I hear what you are saying and agree in principle, I was just interested to get some thoughts from experienced mig owners. 

[andyc]

GM do or did and proper auto trans cooler for just this sort of job.

Most of the time it was factory fit from new but i cant see a reason why you can't retro fit one

Looking at EPC they seem to be listed for facelift onwards for 2.2 petrol and the 2.6&3.2

Cheers
Andy

[Mr Skrunts]

I had a problem which my carton Auto, if I caned it in sports mode on a hot day i reckon the oil got too hot and caused the box togo into limp mode.  I would have loved to have fitted an extra cooler on it, and that was without towing.

[2woody]

do you want one ?

I've just done an "auto-ectomy" on a late-model car and have one of these separate coolers going spare. 20 quid with pipes ok ?

early cars have a "normal" auto fluid cooler which sits inside the right-hand engine coolant radiator end tank.

later cars have a separate air-to-air cooler which slots nicely in between the coolant radiator and the air-con radiator. I suspect that this was done more to promote engine cooling by taking the heat exchanger out of the end tank than it was for extended gearbox cooling.

the GM 4L30E has a fluid temperature sensor somewhere in it, putting the transmission in "limp-home" if over-temperature. It will also change the torque-converter lock-up strategy as well, possibly at a lower temperature than required to go to full "limp-home"

[2woody]

GM do or did and proper auto trans cooler for just this sort of job.

Most of the time it was factory fit from new but i cant see a reason why you can't retro fit one

Looking at EPC they seem to be listed for facelift onwards for 2.2 petrol and the 2.6&3.2

Cheers
Andy

funny how people crop up..... It's Mr Granger here 

[andyc]

had a funny feeling it was you by the list of cars, not to many SS coms in the UK

Andy

Oh watch out as Crofty is around here as well  

[2woody]

not much danger of bumping into Mr Marsh, tho 

[andyc]

Stuart, if know one wants the cooler stick it to one side. The ABS internal courier system will be about at some point or a Marham trip, no hurry.

Do i still owe you for a boot spoiler???

Cheers
Andy 

[Kevin Wood]

the GM 4L30E has a fluid temperature sensor somewhere in it, putting the transmission in "limp-home" if over-temperature. It will also change the torque-converter lock-up strategy as well, possibly at a lower temperature than required to go to full "limp-home"

Yep, you can see the fluid temperature in the live data from a Tech 2.

I believe it will lock up in 2nd on climbs when the fluid temperature is above a certain threshold whereas normally lockup will only happen in 3rd and 4th.

Haven't managed to provoke it either towing 1800kg of trailer tower up onto the downs nor on Stelvio with a bootful of camping gear. Not trying I guess.

General consensus is that the transmission cooling is adequate, and plenty of people on here tow.

However, it probably wouldn't hurt. If you fit the extra cooler before the heat exchanger in the rad. it will have greatest effect in reducing heat dumped into the engine's cooling  system and also prevent the fluid being overcooled too far below the temperature of the engine coolant.

One essential point to look after these gearboxes is to given them a fluid change every 60k or so, though, as said.

Kevin