WATER in transmission fluid?

8secride

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 25, 2009
Location
wilkes
i have a 1992 cherokee we bought for my grandma to drive and its recently started slipping the transmission ans acting funny so we checked the transmission fluid and its pink milky looking.. possibly coming from the radiator??? whats the fix to this?
 
Fraid so.
I would use a cheaper straight drive radiator (without the built in cooler) and add a decent cooler. There is not much room in the grill, check Summit for a frame rail mounted cooler. I have used several on projects and they save a lot of space up front and are an easy install. Hope that helps.
 
depending on how long it has had water in it u might be able to flush it repeatedly, also slight possibility the water go in there through the dipstick tube seal
 
water in the trans is no good regardless of the amount.
the glue that holds the friction material to the clutch disc , is water soluble. if the water is run in the trans, it attacks the glue and the friction material releases from the disc.
 
Did you check the coolant to see if transmission fluid had made it's way into there? Seems to me, the transmission fluid is under higher pressure, meaning it would have pushed more fluid into the coolant before the coolant contaminated the transmission fluid.

Maybe a leak at the dipstick hole letting water in?

Agreed, trans is pretty much toast once it has water in it.

I would rather keep the cooler in the radiator though, helps it get up to operating temp faster in the winter otherwise with just an external cooler you may never get above 100* or so trans temp causing erratic shifts and possibly never lock the converter killing the fuel mileage. Many vehicles change the shift points and tq converter locking points after the tranny warms up. Being a 92, that may not be the case, either way, there is a such thing as the fluid being too cool as the colder fluid doesn't flow as easily affecting line pressures and therefor clutch apply pressure and shift speed.
 
quick lesson,
when the cooler goes bad, the reason it leaks into the trans is, when the trans is running the pressure in the trans is greater then the radiator. when you turn the car off, coolant pressure is still 14lbs and trans is 0 psi, the pressure in the radiator pushes through the cooler.
 
transman731 said:
quick lesson,
when the cooler goes bad, the reason it leaks into the trans is, when the trans is running the pressure in the trans is greater then the radiator. when you turn the car off, coolant pressure is still 14lbs and trans is 0 psi, the pressure in the radiator pushes through the cooler.
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Agreed, which would mean both should be cross contaminated. And therefore if you just "disconnected" the trans lines and didn't fix/replace/plug the radiator, you would get coolant leakage from the transmission ports in the radiator.
 
GCncsuHD said:
Agreed, which would mean both should be cross contaminated. And therefore if you just "disconnected" the trans lines and didn't fix/replace/plug the radiator, you would get coolant leakage from the transmission ports in the radiator.
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^right. simply take a flexable hose and clamps run it from one outlet on the radiator to the inlet on the radiator and your all set. will not leak externally. just blow air through the internal cooler to get out most of the tranny fluid before putting on the hose.
 
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