[b-man]

.....for mounting the trans cooler, with a little help from my friends.

I will mount it up front instead of taking the easy way out and mounting it under the car on the frame where it really won't do a good job and could end up damaged. I had to be reminded that there is a lot of hot air expelled underneath the car from the radiator, engine block and exhaust system.

The one I have is just too a little too big to fit behind the front bumper in front of the radiator and condensor, so I'll just downsize the cooler and get one about half the size so I can put it up front where it really needs to go. The 4L70E overdrive trans with the lockup converter shouldn't put out quite as much heat as one with a non-lockup converter that will by design slip at least a little 100% of the time.

You can see the top of the cooler here, it is 1-1/2" thick and there is only a 2-1/2" space for it. On the left it's just touching the condenser at the bottom corner, it has to follow the angle of the front bumper and grilles in order to fit.



This cooler is 10" wide (as mounted here) including the mounting flanges and has an 8" core width. I will replace it with one of the same design that is 5-3/4" wide with a 3-3/4" core, it will also be 1-1/2" thick like the larger one:http://www.summitracing.com/parts/BMM-70273/



Should get some pretty decent airflow here and not block too much airflow to the condensor and radiator.



It will mount the same as the trans cooler I have on my GTO shown here, but of course it will only be about half as wide. Plumbing will be done using 3/8" steel hard lines with inverted flare fittings (no rubber hose) like the GTO as well.







Thanks for all the help and suggestions guys, much appreciated.

Originally Posted by 77 TRASHCAN

What kind of mufflers are those in pic???

They're #17770 3" Dynomax Super Turbos, I want to use the quietest mufflers possible and 2-1/2" tailpipes to help achieve some additional noise reduction. Good for an unrestricted 500 HP in pairs which will work fine for my 450 HP stock LS3 engine with headers, but I'm not sure yet if I can get them to fit as they're pretty wide at 11" not to mention 5-1/2" thick.

Once I added the chassis braces shown here I lost about 1-1/2" of room on each side (right next to the lower control arm pivot bolt) pushing the mufflers closer together and leaving very little room for the driveshaft to run between them. Still trying different things on this build.

[Billz428]

Looks good from here and as always excellent craftsmanship!

[b-man]

.....for my twin trans coolers.

They tuck right behind the bumper way down low, the top half of the coolers will be exposed to fresh air coming in from the slot in the bumper.

After removing the front bumper this is what I have to work with.



Both coolers are mounted to a piece of 1" wide X 3/16" thick X 29" long mild steel bar. The bar mounts to a pair 1-3/4" long standoffs (spacers), the bar is about 3/8" from the front of the condensor fins. I was able to use two existing 1/4" holes in the core support to mount it, worked out just perfect!

Down below I still need to fab up a pair of lower support brackets from the same mild steel bar, they will bolt to the two lower 3/8" studs that mount the hood latch support in the center and two exisiting 3/8" holes at the bottom corners of the core support channel.



I used a large 1/2 NPT run tee at the top outlet of the second cooler so I could install a trans temp sender for the Autometer trans temp gauge. This should give me a pretty good temperature reading of the cooled fluid before it heads back to the transmission.



A shot of the 3/8" tube loop that connects the outlet of the first cooler to the inlet of the second cooler. There's plenty of clearance between the tubing loop and the hood latch lever so I won't burn my fingers on the hot tubing. All of the tube fittings are brass inverted flare, already proven to be reliable by the OEMs.



None of the brass fittings or the tube loop can be seen with the bumper and grilles in place, the rest of the cooler plumbing will be hidden behind the bumper as well.

Tomorrow I hope to finish up the plumbing on both coolers and the lower mounting brackets.

[71firebird400]

B-Man, I've heard that you can "overcool" a transmission if you don't allow it to reach sufficient temperature. I was a bit concerned about this with my current setup, have you heard anything about this, or is it a myth?

Thanks

[66Mutt]

The installation notes with my tranny talked about the temp that you read is usually in the pan. The temp in the Torque converter is higher than the temp in the pan. They stressed keeping it as cool as possible. My transmission was running about 220 deg before I ran the largest B&M cooler I could fit in the grill. I have not seen it go above 165 deg now on the 100 deg days.
Doug

[b-man]

Originally Posted by 71firebird400

B-Man, I've heard that you can "overcool" a transmission if you don't allow it to reach sufficient temperature. I was a bit concerned about this with my current setup, have you heard anything about this, or is it a myth?

Thanks

Mark,

Out here in the So Cal desert I don't think running too cool is a big concern, but you do want to get some heat in the fluid I agree. Keeping these transmissions cool is the key to long life from what I've heard. My 3600 converter is a little more than 9.5" in diameter so it will run tend to run hot when it's not locked up. Blocking off the slot in the bumper is always an option in cooler weather if need be.

Originally Posted by 66Mutt

The installation notes with my tranny talked about the temp that you read is usually in the pan. The temp in the Torque converter is higher than the temp in the pan. They stressed keeping it as cool as possible. My transmission was running about 220 deg before I ran the largest B&M cooler I could fit in the grill. I have not seen it go above 165 deg now on the 100 deg days.
Doug

Doug,

I'm hoping that these two coolers will keep up with the demand for cooling when I'm hammering this car through a long canyon run, I think I have it covered. Taking my fluid temp reading just before it heads back to the pan should be pretty close to taking a reading at the pan, this was a convenient way to package the sender and keep added clutter away fron the trans pan area. I do take the reading at the pan on my '64 GTO TH400 though.
___________________________________

I made some more progress on the twin-trans cooler installation today.

I put the front bumper back on and adjusted it as closely as I could to where it will be on the finished car. After checking the clearance between the coolers and the bumper I found they needed to be shifted upward by one inch. This puts the top of the cooler fins right at the top of bumper slot, a little bit more ideal for catching cooling air and adding some much needed clearance at the bottom of the coolers to the bumper.

I put the driver's side grille in to check for clearance too. The brass fittings and tubing are hidden from view in the grille area.



With the bumper removed again and the various component clearances confirmed it was time to bend up some 3/8" steel hard lines.



There was a small 'window' of space for both of the cooler lines to pass through the core support at the bottom corner.



Both lines terminate a few inches past the core support, the 3/8" inverted flare unions were staggered to make it a little easier to swing a line wrench on them. I bent the lines so as to leave access to the hole in the frame for the front bumper bolt.



I still need to make up the bottom support brackets, but I did manage to get all of the plumbing finished on the front end.

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend!

[ERIC AULL]

Originally Posted by Old Man Taylor

I found a better picture of it. You can see the trans cooler through the grill, and at the lower part you can see the additional holes I drilled. Let me know if better pictures would be a help.

Looks real good Mr. Taylor. I was thinking about where to mount mine (67 GTO w/AC). i had thought of that spot, and now I am going to use it. thanks!! Eric

[b-man]

The one thing I really wanted to get done this weekend was to make up the rest of the transmission cooling lines. I dropped by my local NAPA and picked up a couple more 60" pre-made lengths of 3/8" steel brake line this morning while doing my weekly food shopping.

I had previously made up these short lines coming off the trans, there's zero access to the top two fittings on the trans after it's installed.



I started out making up the lower line that will return the cooled fluid to the transmission, starting at the trans since this looked like the easier tubing route to start out with.



I continued working towards the front and made up the final connection. Bending up this first line took the better part of 2 hours, it takes a bit of time to remove and replace the line over and over along with making some minor adjustments of the bends to get things fitting just right. The steel tubing is soft enough that you can tweak it a little by hand to make minor adjustments, you certainly will end up making a lot of small adjustments before it's right.

I used all 60" of the line except for the last 1/2", I had to cut off that last little bit in order to make the last bend in the line as the flare nut would have been in the way of the tubing bender itself. After making the last bend I double flared the end. Making sure to put the flare nut on the line before making up the flare is something that's easy to forget to do sometimes!



Using some short scraps of tubing I made up a pattern to follow to get started. You can't easily manipulate the "60 long line with all of the obstacles in the way, using scraps like this helps you avoid mistakes that will scrap out the longer line you're trying to work with.



Here's the second line that brings the hot trans fluid from the converter to the coolers almost halfway finished.



Bending up the second line will go twice as fast as the first one since I now have a full-length pattern to follow. I'm just about to make the second to last bend here.



Again I had to cut off the flare to get the flare nut out of the way in order to make the the last bend and terminate this one at the trans. I cut off about 1/4" of line which puts the tubing cutter as close to the old flare as possible. The line on the top shown here is the second one I made up.

I just barely had enough tubing length to make up these lines, everything worked out well for me today. I did rethink the routing of the lines a little halfway through making up the first one and eliminated one bend near the front in order to conserve some line length, I could see that I was close to not having enough.



I still need to fasten the lines down in a couple of places using some 3/8" Adel clamps, I did my best to make them run parallel to one another. Without the fender on the car it makes little sense to fasten them down, the inner fender will move a little from where it is now with the fender installed.



Plenty of room between the lines and the header tubes, both lines can easily be removed from the topside without having to tweak them.



Finished.



Sometimes there's just no easy way out.

Doing things right is definitely worth the time and trouble, my transmission should live a long life now.

[66bonne]

That is so beautiful that it brought a tear to my eye.

Jim

[cuz68]

You did do a great job on the lines, My hat is off to you.

[Old Man Taylor]

Great work Bart!

[ERIC AULL]

That is some nice plumbing work !! Will you really need all that cooling for the tranny? Eric

[b-man]

Originally Posted by ERIC AULL

That is some nice plumbing work !! Will you really need all that cooling for the tranny? Eric

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

As far as needing all that cooling goes, I just might if I'm beating on this thing hard during a long run through the canyons.

Better to have too much and have the option of blocking off the air flow to the coolers than to have too little and risk killing my very expensive overdrive trans.

[Z Code 400]

We often used an old A/C condenor, in its original location, as a transmission cooler...Robert

Bart,

You must have an incredible amount of free time. When I was a sergeant, I worked a 'three on and four off' 12 hour shift schedule. Now that I have been promoted, I work Monday through Friday, 6:00am to 6:00pm and have precious little time on a Saturday to do any custom work...Robert

[Billz428]

Thanx for documenting and photoing your projects , really fine work !