Hi. I had a very small radiator leak, and I decided to do this the right way and have my mechanic replace the radiator rather than use any stop-leaks on this well-running vehicle. Well, nothing but aggravation since. I could only make it 2 miles from the mechanic. It overheated and I pulled over and parked. It also ran with less power (resistance) the whole 2 miles.

I have since changed the thermostat. My mechanic also came by with a device to remove air from the system. None of that resolved the overheating issue. However, I originally had a 2-row radiator. All the chain parts stores only sell the 1-row radiator, so that is the radiator that I got (part number CU1125). My mechanic believes that I am having this issue because it's the wrong radiator. He didn't notice the difference when he installed it.

I'm skeptical. While I can see that you probably don't want to replace a 2-row rad with a 1-row rad, the research I've done seems to reveal that the van should still run with the 1-row radiator. So I'm skeptical that my sudden overheating issue upon radiator swap gets resolved by returning the 1-row rad and ordering the less-available 2-row rad. What are you guys thoughts on that? Thanks so much...

 

Just following up for those following this thread. It turns out that the replacement radiators for this vehicle are "modified 2-row", meaning one-row that does the work of two. I could not get it to work. It was probably defective. However, I'm not taking a chance with another one. I put the old radiator back in and I will be having it rebuilt soon.

The lack of power issue was the tranny not liking the new trans fluid that I added to get the fluid back to operating range. Not at all surprised. Old trannys take some time to get used to new fluid. Been there, done that. It took about a week. In the past I had a car take a whole month before being happy with new fluid. Glad that's all this was!

 

​​​​Be very careful what you use for fluid. Atf+4 only if you have the 4 speed. Anything else will kill your trans.

 

Holy crap! I thought ATF+4 simply replaced the ATF+3?

 

You are correct on ATF+4 replacing ATF+3.
ATF+3 is no longer available anywhere around here, which is why I said ATF+4 only. If you have both available, either will work.

Don't ever use Dexron, Mercon, or anything that say +3/+4 compatible. Only use ATF+3 or ATF+4.

 

Thanks for the clarification, smokesxt. My auto parts store only sells the full synthetic in their own brand (Carquest). The counter guy said that transmission fluid is synthetic anyway, so that is what I used. What are your thoughts on that? Full synthetic is OK if that is all they sell?

 

ATF+4 is full synthetic for everything I've seen. I don't recall on ATF+3 as it's been a long time since I've seen it around. Either of those is fine.

Avoid using fluids that are "ATF+4 compatible":

They do NOT have the required components and will lead to transmission issues.

I use this in all my Mopar vehicles:


And have had very good experiences with it.

Take a read through this: http://www.allpar.com/fix/trans.html
Tons of excellent info on the 4-speed trans in there.

 

That was an awesome link, smokesxt! Thanks for providing it. I read through it all. Great tips and info in there.

One interesting thing that it mentions is the Chrysler "limp mode" I had a Stratus go into limp mode. No mechanic knew anything about limp mode. They speculated all kinds of serious things. Then I met a guy online who owned a transmission shop. He explained "limp mode", and said that 50% of the time it turns out to be the crank position sensor being good enough for the engine but not good enough for the TCM. He said it's cheap and easy to throw in a new one. I gave it a shot and it worked!

 

I've bought a few Chryslers that people were selling because a trans shop told them their trans was junk. Only had one so far that actually needed a trans. 4 worked like new after a simple fluid/filter change. The other 3 needed new solenoid packs. The one that was actually bad had launched the diff pin.
I find it pretty ridiculous when 7/8 vehicles transmission shops said needed transmissions actually just needed some simple maintenance or a simple part swap.
Guess that goes back to mechanics don't know anything about Chryslers.

 

That, and also mechanics wanting to sell transmissions!

So I guess you change out the tranny fluid first, and if that doesn't work you change out the solenoid pack. You're not actually troubleshooting the solenoid pack, correct?