just quickly looking at the radiator, I'm assuming those are my transmission lines going into there?

Reason I ask is because towing my camper (27' and about 6000#'s) surely gives a lot of stress to the truck. Going out to our campsite was fine, but coming back, I fought a really bad headwind, which made my engine temp go up significantly, once almost to the redline. A lot of this was up and down hills as well on the highway. Truck performed admirably considering that a couple states over there was tornado's tearing through (missouri) and I was getting into that wind.

I already switched everything to a full synthetic change over before the trip, but was looking at a grill block. I certainly don't want to do that when pulling, but even for street use, want to leave the part of the radiator getting the trans cooling done to be open.

I'm assuming this is all on the bottom half?

Would I be better buying a simple transmission cooler "radiator" and placing it lower?

Should I not worry about it and just stop pulling campers in tornado's?

PS. Got 12 mpg pulling there... 8-9 mpg on the way back!!!
3 people, full camper, full kid's gear (that's a lotta shtuff!)

Blu3

 

in for answer. My trans temp light keeps coming on and I'm about to just throw and aux trans cooler on the truck and see if that helps. I hear it's not hard to do and is pretty cheap considering the expensive parts it's saving.

 

Well, my light never came on with my rig. Is this while towing or just beating around the streets?
You may wanna check your fluid levels.
If they are fine, bring it to somewhere that can read codes and see if it can be any more specific.
Also, in Arizona, I'm sure it can get pretty hot, so you may just want one anyways. I think the synthetic royal purple change I did helped in the shifting and such, but I don't know about the temps of the transmission. I know I worked it pretty hard pulling that camper through the wind and up and down hills though!
I even passed some guy in a F350 dually that didn't have a sway bar on his camper.... he was doing 60 and i was scared to be behind him. My little dak passed him at 75. I won't EVER pull without a sway bar.

 

You can get an aftermarket cooler and mount it infront if the ac condensor.

 

The tranny cooler is nothing more than a simple tube in the lower tank. The tranny cooler does not extend in anyway into the heat transfer tubes you see of the radiator.

When I bought my Dak, the tranny cooler had let go inside the rad, allowing an exchange of fluids that took out the tranny. When I replaced the tranny, I used an external tranny cooler from NAPA, and didn't use the rad mounted tranny cooler at all.

I occasionally tow, and wouldn't think of towing without an external cooler.

I mounted the tranny cooler in front of the rad, just behind the grill on some aluminum mounts that I bent up from some flat stock. It is in the middle under the hood latch.

 

The factory transmission cooler on just about every vehicle out there is run in the radiator. It's basicly just a tube that carries the tranny fluid inside one of the radiator tanks. When your engine is cold it helps to heat up the coolant faster, but when the engines up to temp the coolant helps cool the tranny fluid. Your best bet would be to get a seperate trans-cooler, preferably a "stacked-plate" design. It works better then just a regular tube and fin cooler. You can also get them with a fan built onto the cooler which would help even more if your towing some heavy loads.
The top 4 are the stacked-plate design http://www.etrailer.com/tran-2005_Do...=4.7L+(285+c.i.)

 

thx shooter and yankee. Is this the "best" one there is? I figure if I'm gonna spend $40, I might as well spend $65 and get the best. Anybody else have any input?

 

Are those the "best" brand, I cant say. But that is the best design.

 

thanks for the ink! I might just get one of these anyway, even though I dont tow....

 

I just got a couple of tranny cooler pictures uploaded.

This is on my '05 Quad Cab, 3.7. Napa supplied tranny cooler, I don't recall the part number off hand.