ok i'm going to put the cooler on today and the new solid motor mount. i think i've got an idea on how this going to work and i'll have pics and a brief how -to on it also i'm leaving next friday so afterwards we'll know if it was worth it.time to get to work

cliff

talk about no room to work, i'm having to take it to a friend of mine'* shop so i can put it on the lift, there is very little room in front of the radiator so it looks as if i'm putting it directly behind the grill. i checked the air flow and it'll be cooling, my only worry is if something hits the grill that cooler will be trashed. not definite on the location yet but due to room i'll either have to do some refabing or mount it behind the grill which i'm not happy about.


cliff

p.*. the muffler shop is putting me on a set of flowmaster 40'* on wednesay. hope it will sound o.k.

I suggest a delay in the exhaust work until the hitch is installed. They may have to work around it. Any aftermarket exhaust work may interfere with the hitch. Trust me on that one. I was lucky and did it hitch first, exhaust after. It was a trick to get the muffler hangers to hold in the right position not to rattle against my hitch.

I have pics of that setup somewhere if you want them, but yours will be different.

Ok the Imperial 242009 tranny cooler is installed. First, if you do it the way i did you will have to purchase another 3 ft of hose same as what came with the cooler. this was the only thing i had to buy extra.

1) Remove splash guard from under radiator support.
2) Connect hoses to cooler.
3) Install cooler in desired place ( i mounted it to the left side bottom of the A/C radiator)
4) Run hoses under radiator support and over front cross member.
5) Cut return line from radiator to tranny (bottom radiator line. cut after first bend close to tranny)
6) Install rubber lines onto cut ends .
7) Start car check for leaks, reinstall splash guard, drive car for about 2 miles.
Reinspect for leaks, check tranny fluid fill if needed.

This was really simple to do and took me about 2 hrs of figuring out how i was going to do it and then actually doing it. With a small line cutter, a flat tip screwdriver, and a pair of pliers this job should only take about 30 minutes at the most (i was working on a lift so that made it easier).

car done great, it got 17 mpg and temp ran btween 190 and 200 the whole trip while pulling the 6 by 12 ft u-haul trailer that weighed 2000 lbs, will weigh the trailer tommorow to know the exact weight. we only had 2 problem, one was the tranny line coming off the cooler and the other with the heater and still haven't figured it out. just got here going to bed to get some rest will go into detail tommorow night.


cliff

My inept cousins carried a 2000lb. trailor with my grandma'* 87' Bonny for 250 miles. By the time they reached the destination the trans was a solid block of metal.

the trailer after towing it actually weighed 4400 lbs and empty weighed 1700 lbs, the car without passengers loaded weighed 4340 and empty weighed 3960. so all in all the engine and tranny was pulling a grnd total of 8740lbs so for the tranny to stay cool i would say that the cooler did a great job. the line came off in the parking lot of the motel we stayed. it was first thing in the morning so i got lucky that we stopped for the night.

cliff

actually no, it is much smaller. it is only about a 4th of the size of the radiator. but now with no extra pull on the car it operates at about 175 to 180 degrees oppose to the 185 to 195 range.

cliff

I must say that my car really never gets that hot. I have a trans temp gague and even in the summer/fall in NC my trans runs about 180 all the time, it is rare for me to see 210-220 on the gague, do you think that i need a cooler??

yea fluid has never been changed or the filter , but the fluid still looks like it came out of the bottle