Hi - Nice forum. I am a newbie and a new Dodge owner. We bought a 2000 Durango SLT 4x4 with a 4.7 L V8 last week. It is a very nice ride and I really like the truck. It is my first Dodge ever, I am totally unfamiliar with them. My dad was a Ford guy, my bro is a Chevy guy and I have had two Hondas. I love cars and I enjoy working on them.
Anyway, I noticed a little spot of fluid under the car in front close to the driver's seat in my driveway. After crawling under the car I found the source of the leak. A transmission cooler line is leaking about 3-4 good drops after a drive of longer than 15 minutes or so. The puddle under the car is about the size of an old silver dollar.- Nothing serious but I am kinda of particular about leaks in my driveway. Anyway, I got a wrench on the nut that seems to be on the end of the line before the line goes into the radiator?? (or bottom of it) and tried to crank tight. I got it to turn about a 1/8 turn and then decided to try it out because I don't want to screw anything up. The puddle still appears and I was wondering if this was a common problem to Durangos? Also, would you recommend tightening this fitting some more. It was pretty hard to turn it much further, but I had an 18 mm wrench on there and there is not alot of room to get torque on it. I will hit next time with a standard wrench - would you recommend another crank?
Also off the topic - MPG on the truck according to trip computer is 13.1 MPG. I opened the air cleaner housing and inspected the air filter. Dirty as mud, even debris in the bottom of the housing. Question is I wanted to get a K&N air filter to increase mileage. Is there a significant advantage to K&N as opposed to say Fram or something? Also, spark plug replacement may help. DO you recommend a spark plug that may help mileage- say Bosch Platinum? THanks

 

No idea about the tranny cooler but I would say that a K&N drop in filter could help also you might want to try a little bit of this https://dodgeforum.com/m_532722/tm.htm . As far as the plugs don't put anything other than champion copper plugs in, I put some bosch platinum plugs in with the 2 prongs and couldn't even leave the engine idling one night, it would just die. The Durango hates them.

 

OK Ill use champion's. Same thing I used in my Hondas. Good luck so far. Thanks for your input.

 

Yep not a problem and welcome to the site.

 

Champion only for your ride. Also try to put a small bit of Teflon tape on the outside of the threads and reassemble the line. this should take care of your leak. As for tightening, I would stay away from over tightening. Remember that those fittings are only aluminum and brass which are soft medals.