Car Transmission

The fluid in your car’s transmission should be replaced every 30,000 miles. Over time, the assembly’s friction creates an enormous amount of internal heat. That causes the fluid to oxidize and lose its ability to lubricate the moving parts. Eventually, the lack of lubrication will cause the operational temperature to rise further, leading to varnish, cracked seals, and a loss in pressure. If your transmission fails, you can expect a hefty repair bill.

Below, I’ll quickly take you through the steps involved with changing your car’s transmission fluid and filter (it’s recommended that you do both at the same time). You can pay a mechanic to do the job, but you’ll save time and money by doing it yourself.

Draining The Fluid

If your car has an automatic transmission, it will also have a service pan that contains both the fluid and the filter. On the pan’s underside, there will normally a plug. Remove it and drain the fluid into a catch container. If the pan does not have a plug, you can drain the fluid when you remove the entire pan. (more…)

Many of you add aftermarket coolers to your cars and this is always a good idea. Here are some hints.

1-Always mount the cooler in a place that has good air flow and if mounting in front of the radiator always make sure the fin’s in the cooler are parallel with the fin’s in the radiator to avoid restricting air flow to the radiator. If you must place the cooler in an area with little air flow a FAN is a must.

2-When Installing coolers make sure lines are clear of anything that can rub them and always use line that’s approved for transmission/hydraulic fluid. Fuel line will not work and will break down in transmission fluid.

3-By passing the radiator is the way I prefer a cooler be set up. Generally the transmission will run cooler this way and additionally this may take some of the load off the radiators job of cooling the engine.

4-When hooking up multiple coolers several things should be noted. The cooler itself is a restriction of flow and this restriction while not a problem for the cooling or lube to the trans can cause excessive pressure inside the converter. This can force the converter against the flex plate more so than normal and cause wear to the engine thrust bearing. A stopped up or severely restricted cooler or cooler lines can do the same. So when installing more than one cooler its advised to put them in parallel with each other, This means one line from the trans is split with a Y and one line run to each cooler then out of each and into a Y back to a single line running to the trans. This will assure adequate cooling while reducing the wear to the engine thrust bearing. Always use line that’s at least as large as the inlets in the cooler, Avoid extreme twist or turns in them particularly with rubber lines. (more…)