Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and Chris_North
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2013
- Messages
- 178
- Vehicle Year
- 1998
- Transmission
- Automatic
Recently I purchased and installed a digital trans temp gauge to replace the old digital thermometer with remote probe that I was using to monitor my transmission's behavior. The thermometer's probe was, for lack a a better location, simply taped to the outside of the tranny's outgoing cooling line with a piece of pipe insulation strapped over it to limit the amount of error caused by airflow. This seemed to work well but I wanted a more professional-looking gauge inside the truck, which led me to purchase (along with a pod and oil pressure gauge) a MaxTow series gauge. The way I mounted this is with a drain plug kit right into the bottom of the fluid pan by the filter pickup. Out of curiosity, I decided to leave the old thermometer in place to see the difference in temperature readings. What I've found is that while driving the fluid temp of the cooling line is between 20-40 degrees hotter than the pan fluid. When at a standstill for an extended period the readings are about equal. This makes sense to me, and is more or less what I was expecting, but then I got to thinking...
Basically my question is which is a more accurate representation of what's going on? The fluid going out to the cooler is coming pretty much right out of the converter correct? So pretty much no matter what the temp of the reservoir of fluid that fluid is going to be hot. The fact that after installing a tertiary cooler I noticed no real reduction in outgoing fluid temp seems to kind of support this. Additionally once I get moving and everything is warmed up the cooler line temp seems to stay about the same regardless of ambient temp. But on the other hand, just because the fluid in the pan is cool doesn't mean it isn't hot someplace else. I also understand it's not just the temp that's the problem, it's the time at that temperature, so even if it's coming out of the trans at 200F it isn't long before it goes through the coolers and goes down to whatever it comes back at.
Another question I just thought of is how much fluid typically circulates through those cooling lines?
Basically my question is which is a more accurate representation of what's going on? The fluid going out to the cooler is coming pretty much right out of the converter correct? So pretty much no matter what the temp of the reservoir of fluid that fluid is going to be hot. The fact that after installing a tertiary cooler I noticed no real reduction in outgoing fluid temp seems to kind of support this. Additionally once I get moving and everything is warmed up the cooler line temp seems to stay about the same regardless of ambient temp. But on the other hand, just because the fluid in the pan is cool doesn't mean it isn't hot someplace else. I also understand it's not just the temp that's the problem, it's the time at that temperature, so even if it's coming out of the trans at 200F it isn't long before it goes through the coolers and goes down to whatever it comes back at.
Another question I just thought of is how much fluid typically circulates through those cooling lines?
