Aux Trans Cooler

I want to install an aux trans cooler on a 95 Taurus wagon w/3.0 engine. The instruction say to determine which is the supply line from the trans to the rad trans cooler. Connect the trans cooler to the supply line and then to the rad cooler. Without taking both lines off the rad trans cooler to determine which one is supply, can anyone tell me if the top or bottom connection on the rad tran cooler is supply? They are hard to get at, so I don't want to take more apart than I have to.

Thanks!

I'm not sure about the Gen IIs, but I know on my gen 4, the lines run from the transmission to the right side of the radiator and exit on the left. It might not be the same on the gen II though. Also, I believe anything on top is for hotter fluid. I could be wrong there too. In my opinion, the best place in the system to put the trans cooler is in series with the radiator after the radiator. (fluid goes trans-rad-cooler-trans)

Both lines go into the rad on the right side. One line torward the top of the rad and the other near the bottom but both on the same side, passenger side.

Yes, you are correct in the order of flow, trans-rad-cooler-trans. I reread the directions. I goofed it up on my first post.

The top is input and bottom is output. The cooler (relative term there, cooler than the input) is more dense, so it falls to the bottom and comes out the bottom.

Wilbur, there's a certain size you need for the trailer you're pulling so don't go put on the biggest cooler you can find thinking you're doing the right thing. ATF needs to come up to a certain temprature before the valve in the tranny opens to route the fluid through the cooler and needs to be heated up to do it's job right. I can't tell you which one to get but thought I'd throw that 2 cents in FYI.

Another good thing would be use fully synthetic ATF because it stands up to higher temps better than regular ATF. Put the pressure line on the bottom cooler fitting so it will fill up the cooler with fluid because if you put it on top the fluid just runs on out and never fills up the cooler and doesn't stay in the cooler long enough to cool it properly. In other words, mount it horizantal and put the pressure line on the lowest fitting. Good luck.

I'm not really gonna tow anything but I know these cars don't have enough cooling of the trans fluid. The car gets a lot of highway use which seems to destroy the trans. I've owned 3 wagons previously they all seem to need a new trans around 100K miles. I'm trying to avoid this with this car. I will be switching to synthetic fluid and installing the trans cooler. I bought the smallest trans cooler TruCool makes. Thanks for the tips! I hope this trans lasts longer than the others.

I am going to agree and disagree with huney ... a bigger cooler will prevent the torque converter from locking up but I went with the biggest one I could find - 14000 pound cooler. I know there's a few guys at TCCA with 26000 pound coolers and have no problems.

I could, however, see a bigger cooler taking away some cool air from the AC and Radiator if it's mounted directly infront of it.

I have Hayden units in front of each of my cooling fans and don't have any problems.

On a 107F day in city driving my tranny was about 185F

today it was 79 and on the turnpike doing 85mph it was 121

Mike
:smokin:

Well, I installed the trans cooler on saturday and things went pretty easy. I also replaced the trans filter and flushed most of the old trans fluid out. I stopped flushing at 11 qts. I should have flushed the entire 13 qts. :banghead: I put mobil 1 synthetic atf in. Cheapest place to buy is Walmart but they only had 3 qts. Next stop Advanced Auto, they were out of stock. Had to buy at local mom & pop auto parts store. Holy cow! Almost $4 more a qt. :eek: Shifts really nice now. The trans cooler install was easy too. Ford already had an additional trans cooler thing on there, well it was really just some extra tubing in front of the rad. But is was joined with a small section of rubber hose. So, I cut the rubber hose and piped the aux. trans cooler in there. So the flow goes from the trans to the rad, then my aux. trans cooler, then the extra tubing in front of the rad, then back to the trans. I don't know what the temp drop is now, wish it had a temp gage.

That's good that you got it installed and changed the fluid - bad / burnt fluid definitely leads to bad transmissions. I tested to see if mine got hot by going wide open up a big hill and touching it ... yeah ... it was pretty warm.

I may have missed it, but what type of cooler did you go with? Did you mount it horizontally or vertically?

I mounted the cooler vertically directly centered on the hood latch. So when the fan turns on it will draw air in thru the cooler. I piped it that supply goes in the bottom. I don't know if that is good or bad cause directions show supply into the top. The trans cooler is a TruCool, not sure of the model but I think it is rated for 11,000lbs.