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Mr Richter I humbly ask for your expertise...

12K views 93 replies 22 participants last post by  Dysfunctional 
#1 ·
My trans temps have gone WAY up in the last two weeks. Prior to this, the highest temp I've ever seen was 180* driving like a PRICK on a 118* day over the crooked and steep mountain road I drive daily. Today I hit 230* in the morning with outside temps in the 50's :poke:

Tonight I came home, hooked up a snap-on MODIS I'm borrowing from a friend and went for a test drive. Trans temps with the scanner are +/- 10* of what my autometer gauge says, I even got it up to 240* with ambient in the high 90's. You can monitor alot with this scanner, but I just locked in trans temp, TCC%, TorqueConverterClutch (on/off) and gear. When I LUGGED it on hills with TC locked in 3rd, TCC% shows 100%. A downshift, TCC% drops to about 60% momentarily (this seems ok). If I climb a grade with 2nd gear manually selected, the TC never locks according to the scanner (TCC shows OFF the entire time to any MPH) and my temps rise FAST.

IMO something is wrong... My temps are sky high out of nowhere. So the other weekend I bypassed the bypass valve on the trans by removing it and adding fittings to adapt back to the threads in the trans. After that temps seemed lower and stayed in check a few days.

When I got back tonight and my trans temp was 240*!!! I started feeling the cooler lines and I didn't not burn myself. Seems to me with fluid that hot I should have 2nd degree burns on my hands right?

Tomorrow I'm going to my friends shop to have the transmission flushed with a machine, 10 times if necessary.

Short version of this babble... I'm thinking I have a blockage...? :swordfight:
 
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#3 ·
I found the blockage. I had debris stuck in the OTW cooler. I did a flow test and only got about a 1/4 of a quart in 15seconds from the return line. So I popped all my lines and started blowing them out with air. When I blew air through the OTW cooler circuit (opposite of the fluid flow), I got a bunch of small brown hard flake lookin crap. I'm assuming this is TC clutch?

Prior to finding the blockage... I flushed the entire fluid system twice, dropped the pan and installed a new filter. Temps got better, but not back to *normal*. I will get the fluid bypass tube back on there, but I had to eliminate that as a possible cause.

I'm trying to hold off untill later this year/early next year for a bad mo-fo trans. I'm looking to pick up a decent (not the best) TC right now. I'm going to drop the trans, do the rest of the tugger kit (front pump mods, snap rings), Lockup on/off valve and install a new TC. Then cry myself to sleep thinking I'll be re-doing this stuff soon. Sound like a plan? :hehe:

My truck drove perfectly fine, no shudder or slipping felt. If it weren't for having gauges.... I'd be clueless. :poke:
 
#4 ·
Sorry, but it is best to leave the bypass off! This is the cause of most tranning overheating problems. The bypass was used to heat the fluid on units without rad cooling and cheaper to leave in instead of removing. If you had that much converter clutch in the cooler you will have failure soon.

Just to help,if you plan on installing the other parts of the transgo kit you need a better snapring then the one furnished in the kit.This the second design and will still pop out! If you use manuel 1 or 2 on decell then install the tugger. If you do not this part of the kit does nothing for you.

Transman
 
#8 ·
I'll make a couple of comments to further the discussion along. Just remember that I'm a non tranny expert, but who has read tons of tranny posts since 2001 so take these with whatever amount of salt you want and the last time I can remember staying at a Holiday Inn Express was over 10 years ago :redspotdance:

My understanding of this bypass based on the following information from someone I believe should know something in fact a lot about the 4R100 tranny ...

The bypass is a pressure relief valve. When it's very cold the fluid in the cooler gets vaery hard to move. Pressure in the cooler line goes up and nothing flows. Since the return from the cooler is used to lube the rear half of the transmission, no cooler flow causes big problems.
If the pressure gets high enough the bypass opens and sends fluid to the rear lube

The internal bypass came out with the TorqShift. The 4R100 is external.
Yes, the bypass was to fix a problem. The fluid in the coolers would get to thick to flow in extreme cold weather. This starved the rear half of the transmission for lube. The bypass allows rear lue to always have fluid.
I do agree that a bypass failure can send temps sky high and IMHO is one reason to have a good tranny temp gauge installed, know your baseline and if things go south find out why pronto and fix the issue. But if the temps are cold enough you could starve the rear of the tranny possibly before the temps got out of control. Also if you remove it and and in warmer weather have a blocked cooler as was the situation in this thread it seems the starvation issue could add to the problem, but maybe the temps go sky high before the starvation issue becomes the major factor in a tranny failure. :shrug: I can also see if the bypass gets stuck open then you will also have a heat issue since it will be bypassing the coolers :rolleyes: I'm not sure what the extreme temps quoted above mean, but I seem to recall a lot of folks seeing that bypass open even in mildly cold climites when trying to "flush" their trannies when they removed the return line from their trannies to do the flush. :( From my understanding during the normal "tranny" flush that we do in our driveway we want that bypass closed and during the procedure we aren't lubing the rear of the tranny so some lack of lubrication over time doesn't seem to be an issue the question is how long is too long and that I have no idea.

FWIW: My stock tranny has both the factory OTA and OTW coolers and the bypass and personally I wouldn't just remove it. :shrug: Of course I also have a spare bypass since a new one was put on when my BTS was built and I got the old one from the original tranny that was still working.

Larry
 
#18 ·
From my understanding during the normal "tranny" flush that we do in our driveway we want that bypass closed and during the procedure we aren't lubing the rear of the tranny so some lack of lubrication over time doesn't seem to be an issue the question is how long is too long and that I have no idea.


Larry
No motion of parts such as the driveshaft when your in park in the driveway. Parts not moving won't need lube. Larry, think about a manual clutch. It disconnects the engine from the transmisson. Engines running must have lube on moving parts. Auto Transmissions are differant than engines. The converter is driving the pump for the flush/change your doing. The motion is stopped when you move the lever to P. I don't think you will need to worry as the rear isn't moving for your flush.

It's 1 am and humidity here is 90% or more at 88 degrees. No relief even in the middle of night or early am. Upper 90's and this humidity are a bear. Going outside is like opening the oven door. It's hurricane air without the wind.
:fordoval:
:fordoval:
:fordoval:
 
#9 ·
"Sorry, but it is best to leave the bypass off! This is the cause of most tranning overheating problems. The bypass was used to heat the fluid on units without rad cooling and cheaper to leave in instead of removing. If you had that much converter clutch in the cooler you will have failure soon"


If your tranny is smoked from the use of the bypass then you have other issues.

This is really not a bypass, but a check valve.

I know of a few tranny's the bypass saved from destruction.

Leave the thing on there and fix the real concern.
 
#10 ·
This is for all of you to understand how the trans works. Ford had installed the bypass before the superduty. Yes It will open if the cooler becomesplugged.But if your cooler is plugged then the trans has already failed! Ford used the bypass on the superduty to warm the fluid up on the early years with no rad coolers. I have seen a lot of posts about not using rad cooling. You must use engine temp to bring trans fluid to operating temp. The more even the trans fluid stays the longer the life of the trans.

Transman
 
#19 ·
GEEZ

The bypass is not there to warm the fluid. It is there to provide lubricant to the rear of the transmission in case there is a flow restriction thru the coolers, for whatever reason.

The radiator cooler is not there to bring the fluid to operating temp. It is there to cool the fluid.
 
#11 ·
So the bottom of the radiator will get up to temp before the trans fluid does? I find that interesting. You'd think they would have stuck the cooler in the top.

I find stuff all day that I have to wonder what the hell they were thinking :badidea:

Not starting a war over a damn bypass, they just seem to work fine in hot ass Oklahoma with the coolers set up properly.
 
#15 ·
So I towed my rock crawler home yesterday (was storing it at my parents) and it's a nasty pull back to my house. Temps went up again and today I hit 210* without a load. Blew the OTW cooler out again and got this... can't really see it all, but I had atleast that much saturday. Oh boy, time to spend money :poke:

 
#22 ·
A man brother, Hey John thanks for the info on the 6 leaker (blown egr cooler/ oil cooler) I can say damn I had to argue with the tech that came to me and we just about went at it and low and behold he pulled it apart and pressured it up and it had a leak .Can't argue with a few of the elder states man.LOL :poke: :ford:
 
#26 ·
I know why Brian does not get on the forums now, smart man.

Should see the pissin' contest I have goin' on another board, that guy is severly out of the know.

My deal is I guess I have too much time to sit around here and read lol, waitin on parts for the car momentarily, then I shall be scarce when they arrive.

To be truthfull if the 6.0 was not such a POS I would have to start buildin' trannys again on a regular basis, but for now the 6.0 junk is makin' me a pile of money I cant turn down, and they will be for a long time to come as they will never get any better.

6.4 gonna be another one, most likely have to quit again to get more money cuz they make the 6.0 look like a carb and set of points lol.

Damn this got off topic, somthin' about trannys and high pressure oil seem to bring on the fights.:swordfight:

Cant we all just get along? :redspotdance:

I'll keep my bypass thank you, but it really makes no difference.

Seems every BTS I have ever seen (4r100) has one too.
 
#28 ·
So, noted on my 99.5 that it has the OTA cooler and the radiator has the OTW cooler, but it was never hooked up. Was this factory or did someone disconnect this earlier in its life?
 
#29 ·
The radiator has been changed using a later model radiator. They didn't have both coolers from the factory until about March 2000.
 
#33 ·
Hey if you want to believe the cooler in the bottom of the radiator is there to bring the trans fluid up to operating temp, that's fine with me.
 
#35 ·
I've had times when I wanted to believe things that weren't correct too. But the feelings will pass. What simple question did I dodge?
 
#37 ·
Didn't realize that was a real question. I thought it was an attempt to be supercilious. But since it's a real question, I drive and have driven one but not very often. BTW I thought we were talking about transmission coolers.
 
#44 ·
Since when is it a good idea to remove the by-pass??? :bsflag:

Nice way to assure the complete destruction of your trans if and when blockage in the cooler ever occurs. When its cold out (below freezing temps) my truck can take a good ten minutes to go into OD. I cant even imagine how long it would take with out the by-pass speeding up the heating process.
 
#49 ·
I leave for 2 days and all hell breaks loose lol.

I have done some testing, and the unit I tested the atf warmed up before the coolant in the bottom of the rad did.

This test concluded to me that in fact its a COOLER, not a WARMER.

I do agree that once everything gets all warmed up etc there is going to be better consistancy, but the engine coolant does not warm the atf, dont care how many trannys you build and how good they are it does not change this fact.

Bypass or no, I dont think it makes a damn if its one there or not as long as the coolers do not restrict. In a super cold climate I woiuld think I would want one, but on the same not it opens and stick you got issues.

Best advice is be sure you have a temp guage.
 
#50 ·
Bypass or no, I dont think it makes a damn if its one there or not as long as the coolers do not restrict. In a super cold climate I woiuld think I would want one, but on the same not it opens and stick you got issues.

Best advice is be sure you have a temp guage.
that makes sense to me.

i was only saying that i would tend to BELIEVE someone with that much experience.
 
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