- Joined
- Mar 24, 2005
- Location
- Stanley, NC
Well, still chasing things down to no avail. After burning my arm on the exhaust and the t-case at the same time last weekend, I felt like the exhaust could be causing extra heat to build up in the transmission. So I spent some time with some exhaust wrap and covered the entire pipe from where it crosses in front of the tranny, till about midway on the t-case, including the cat. Drove home like normal, and it seemed to help ever so slightly in the around town portion, but really made no difference. I was quite disappointed, because I really felt like I could be onto something.
Then I tested the airflow to the coolers by putting a piece of paper in front of them. Radiator, AC condenser, and Hayden cooler all held the piece of paper tight. The factory auxiliary cooler didn't have as much pull (but it is like 4" from the radiator with 3 gaps...). So I made up some awesome cardboard shrouding, that covered almost the entire inside of the grill and 50-60% of the radiator, and routed all that air to the cooler. That made the paper stick to the factory cooler very strongly. Took it for a test drive, maybe helped a little, but nothing measurable.
Also, took some more readings on the lines:
Temp gage 240, cooler supply 230, cooler return 130, pan bottom 150, pan top 235ish (pre-cardboard shroud, after driving 30 minutes, 15 miles interstate, 2 miles town, 10 miles country roads)
Temp gage 220, cooler supply 220, cooler return 120, pan bottom 150, pan top 230ish (post-cardboard shroud, after driving 10 minutes, 10 miles country roads, was already hot, but cooled down to 200F first)
So it looks like the cooler is doing it job, but something is still putting major heat into the fluid.
Then I tested the airflow to the coolers by putting a piece of paper in front of them. Radiator, AC condenser, and Hayden cooler all held the piece of paper tight. The factory auxiliary cooler didn't have as much pull (but it is like 4" from the radiator with 3 gaps...). So I made up some awesome cardboard shrouding, that covered almost the entire inside of the grill and 50-60% of the radiator, and routed all that air to the cooler. That made the paper stick to the factory cooler very strongly. Took it for a test drive, maybe helped a little, but nothing measurable.
Also, took some more readings on the lines:
Temp gage 240, cooler supply 230, cooler return 130, pan bottom 150, pan top 235ish (pre-cardboard shroud, after driving 30 minutes, 15 miles interstate, 2 miles town, 10 miles country roads)
Temp gage 220, cooler supply 220, cooler return 120, pan bottom 150, pan top 230ish (post-cardboard shroud, after driving 10 minutes, 10 miles country roads, was already hot, but cooled down to 200F first)
So it looks like the cooler is doing it job, but something is still putting major heat into the fluid.