Although I'm not quite up to this point yet, I do want to plan ahead so I can know exactly what to expect when I get there. Any help would be greatly appreciated. So here are a couple pictures of the stock transmission cooler on my 85 Z28.




It sat in front of the radiator. It measures approximately 17" tall, 28" wide, and 1&3/4" deep. I cannot find a stock replacement for this. Either way, I would like to upgrade since I have heard that the stacked plate style is better than this tube and fin style. Does anyone know where I can get another one that will fit in this spot? Or, should I keep this one and run a separate stacked plate transmission cooler in addition to this stock one? If so, where would it go, what size, and any recommendations? Thanks again everyone!

 

The transmission cooler is in the radiator. That’s a condenser.

 

What?!? Are you serious?!? For A/C? If so, I feel like a complete idiot...

 

Ok, well, add that to a huge list of blunders... Anyway, I no longer have my heater or A/C, so could I just get rid of this and place an additional transmission cooler in that spot? From what I understand, fluid should go from the transmission to the aftermarket cooler first, then into the radiator, then back to the transmission. Sound right?

 

The AC condenser would work as a tranny cooler,but about 6x oversize for the job -overcooling the fluid not good either.On my car,a ~1994 ford explorer tranny cooler with a fan mounted works great-I drilled out and retapped the ford cooler fittings for 1/4 pipe

 

 

I had a Hayden trans cooler installed a couple weeks ago after having some 3-4 clutch pack issues. I had it mounted in front of the AC condenser.

 

Yes, you could do that; just be sure to keep everything you remove from the car so that you can restore it to original condition if you choose to do so at some point in the future.


An auxiliary trans cooler should be installed in series, after the factory cooler, as shown in the diagram seen in post #6.

 

Ok. Thanks for everything so far guys. But, I'd like to get clarification on routing. Because in another thread...

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tech...-radiator.html

AlkyIROC says this...

"That cooler is also a cheap tube and fin design. Although it will work, it's not as efficient as a stacked plate style.

Tranny oil temp should be roughly the same temp as engine oil with is roughly 10-20 degrees hotter than the coolant. To maintain a uniform tranny oil temp, there's a specific way to route the aftermarket cooler.

Hot oil from the tranny should go to the aftermarket cooler first to remove as much heat as possible with air flow moving across the cooler fins. The oil then flows through the rad cooler. If the oil is still too hot, the rad will bring it down to a proper temperature. If the coolant is too cold after going through the aftermarket cooler, the rad will heat it up to the proper temperature. Either way, the temp of the tranny oil going back to the transmission will always be at a uniform temperature.

If the tranny oil goes through the rad cooler first, the rad which is also trying to bring the coolant temp down is now trying to bring down the tranny oil temp which can put a huge load on the cooling system. If the oil is still too hot coming out of the rad cooler or has been brought down to a colder temp, it then passes through the external cooler which brings it down even more. This causes too much inconsistency in tranny oil temps. Oil returning to the tranny can be just about right or far too cold."

So which is it?

 

The usual method is to rout to radiator cooler first,then add-on auxillary cooler,but with my car -that did not have the radiator cooler-just ran it through the air-cooled cooler only,been that way since 1993 and 160.000 miles ago at first a steel tube +fin cooler from a pop machine was used,then the Ford explorer cooler was mounted-Ford cooler has very high fin density,so a fan was needed.