Auto trans cooler lines

[CoupedUpSubie]

A friend of mine is loosing ATF. She says it is coming from the area around the radiator which tells me it has a cooler. It is a 97 Legacy wagon. A local garage did a temporary fix last week which is already failing, which is a hose clamp. Is this a special hose? Anyone know of a place to get it if it is? I can't look at the car myself because it is a bit of a drive for me.

 

[Chris]

Just go to napa or any auto parts store and get transmission cooler line. It's a common item. The bottom tranny cooler line is a total bitch to access. It's easier of you unbolt the hold downs for the radiator. The coolant hoses have enough flex you can lift it up and to the passenger side a little bit to help get more access to that hose.

Sometimes the hardlines rust and leak, but the rubber ones getting brittle is much more common. I'd start there.

These transmissions are really sensitive to running low on fluid, it'll toast all kinds of things inside there. Be careful with that leak!

 

[CoupedUpSubie]

Just go to napa or any auto parts store and get transmission cooler line. It's a common item. The bottom tranny cooler line is a total bitch to access. It's easier of you unbolt the hold downs for the radiator. The coolant hoses have enough flex you can lift it up and to the passenger side a little bit to help get more access to that hose.

On USMB it was mentioned that they could be metal for a built in cooler(in with the radiator) . Any experience with those?

 

[Chris]

On USMB it was mentioned that they could be metal for a built in cooler(in with the radiator) . Any experience with those?

Huh?

There are rubber hoses off the transmission that goes to hardlines that run along the inside of the frame rail for a couple of feet. Then just before the radiator it goes back into rubber lines that hook up to the cooler.

The cooler is just a heat exchanger in the end take of the radiator.

The hard lines can rust and leak, but that's almost always at the back end toward the firewall.

 

[CoupedUpSubie]

Ok, well I think my saturday afternoon will be spent working on this. A lot cheaper then her paying a shop to do it.

 

[Chris]

It's not that hard of a job. Just kinda tight access to the cooler end of the lines. As I said, lifting the rad and moving it to the pass side is your savior getting access. You'll probably have to disconnect the fan connectors (easy from the bottom) and disconnect the top line first. But you'll see what I mean that moving the rad over as much as the cooling hoses allow will help. Also, an 8mm nut driver with a long handle/extension helps tremendously with the hose clamps. Flat blade screwdrivers suck oh so much because you can barely see where you're trying to access, it's covered in atf and slippery, and the damn thing just keeps sliding off the screw.

You may find that moving the battery out of the way might help access to the hard line end of the cooler hoses in the front, but it's not necessary.

Pro tip for getting the radiator seated back down again. The bottom of the radiator has pegs that sit in rubber grommets. It will not want to go in. Spray PB blaster or something in the rubber grommets. It'll lube them up, and the radiator will drop right back in no problem.

Same thing helps for getting the new hoses over the metal barbs.

 

[CoupedUpSubie]

Well I went and worked on the car today. I will be going back to straighten out a couple other things I saw and wasn't very impressed with. Whoever worked on it last, doubtful the shop she took it to, failed to tighten the hose clamp on the radiator end of the hose. So a possible $20 fix turned out to be a $1 fix. Now I just need to go back a bit more prepared with a couple other tools. At some point the coolant resevoir was removed and now it is secured by a bolt at the top of the radiator, the bottom isn't seated in its hole. The radiator couldn't be moved due to the poor condition of the bolts. I could spend a couple days fixing a ton of little stuff that should be fixed for absolute piece of mind.

 

[Chris]

How did you get to that bottom cooler line without moving the radiator? My god, that must have sucked. heh.

Yea, that's all pretty common stuff I've seen a lot :/

Mechanics NEVER get the bottom of the overflow bottle back in the hole. It annoys me every time I see it.

Those radiator bolts do like to break off, so yea, careful with them.

 

[CoupedUpSubie]

It only needed a hose clamp. Long screwdrivers plus some contortion-ism of the hands.