Hi Ron -
Thanks for your thoughts. I have never seen what's inside my
radiator, especially at the bottom where the transmission oil
cooling function occurs. I pictured a labyrinth of tubing in the
bottom "tank" of the radiator, where the tubing is exposed to the
relatively cooler water in the radiator, just before the coolant
is discharged out the bottom. And I pictured that the rupture
would have occurred in some portion of the tubing, leading to
transmission fluid leakage into the coolant while the transmission
is operating and those lines were pressurized. Or is my
visualization incorrect?
The radiator had been rebuilt less than one hour operating time
before this event, although I have no idea what they did inside,
especially at the bottom. They may not have even looked at that
part of the radiator! So, the radiator is coming out and going to
the (supposedly) best place in town, and I want to watch just
what they are doing every step of the way! I may even ask if they
can rebuild it to a 4-core configuration instead of the stock
3-core version. And of course, I'll be especially interested in
seeing what goes on in that bottom tank with the transmission
cooling lines.
After draining everything from the transmission pan, we put a
blow-gun all over every tranny part accessible with the pan
removed, (including valve body and now-empty torque converter),
and then we even put a big desiccant bag in the bottom of the pan
where the filter used to reside, closed it up and left it there
for two days. Also blew out the new stainless lines from the
transmission forward to the radiator.
Next plan for cooling system after rebuilt radiator (top, middle
and bottom!) is reinstalled: we will put some degreaser (Awesome,
Simple Green, Purple Power, etc.) into the radiator water while we
begin the transmission refill process. Then run it for a couple
of hot/cold cycles, then drain out the transmission fluid. Rinse
and repeat. Plan to fill and drain the transmission at least
twice to flush out any residual water. Also plan to fill and
drain the radiator (and entire cooling system as best we can) at
least twice, leaving heater in "ON" position to get everything out
of there, too. Finally, refill radiator ith conventional 50/50
green antifreeze (plus Redline WaterWetter) and keep and eye on
everything from temperature to possible pink oily slime on top of
radiator water! Change again if necessary.
Then, just cross fingers (arms, legs, toes and eyes, too!) and
hope the brief exposure to water (with EvapoRust) did not damage
anything inside the zero-hour rebuilt transmission!
I will keep the membership posted on the progress (success or
failure) of this miserable problem!
Ray Melton
1957 300C convert
Las Cruces, NM (575)642-3151
*************************************************************************************************************
On 6/7/2016 6:04 AM, Ron Waters wrote:
Ray -
Job One would be to have a
quality radiator shop rebuild your radiator. There is a breech
between the cooling tank on the bottom and the radiator core
itself. Your radiator is toast. Be sure to get a warranty as
well.
There is no need to jury rig auxiliary
tranny coolers, etc. Once you have a new radiator, the system
will work as expected.
Removal of coolant from transmission: I
would drop the pan and let all fluid drain out. Also drain out
the torque converter. Let everything drain for a while. Then
refill with fresh tranny fluid. You may want to work the car
through the gears a few times. Then shut engine off and drain
the tranny again. Then refill with fresh fluid again.
Removal of tranny fluid from coolant:
Drain out cooling system, which may include heater core if
that was connected to the system. Add a weak solution of
coolant and water (I wouldn't run pure water thru the engine).
Get engine up to operating temperature. Then cool down and
drain cooling system. Refill with fresh coolant 50/50 mix and
you should be in good shape.
Ron
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2016
6:15 PM
Subject: [Chrysler300]
Transmission cooling line failure inside radiator
I have transmission fluid contaminating the
cooling system, and water contaminating the fluid in the
transmission! Seeking Advice. How to decontaminate
transmission and entire cooling system.
Description of problem: After manually refilling the Type F
fluid (about 10 quarts) in the newly rebuilt Torqueflite in my
1957 300C, we came back the next morning to find a big pool of
water and transmission fluid under the car! They removed the
transmission pan, which let out a considerable amount of water
and oil mix. The Torque converter was completely drained.
There were remnants of pink oil visible on the cooling
passages when the radiator cap was removed. The radiator was
drained of the remaining oil and water mixture.
It was quickly concluded that the tubing for transmission
fluid at the bottom of the radiator had ruptured internally
while the engine was being run to perform the fluid fill
process, pumping high-pressure pink fluid into the radiator
water while running. But after shutting down for the night,
the heavier water pushed back through the (now unpressurized)
ruptured oil cooler line inside the radiator, which eventually
pushed oil and water out some overflow location near the back
end of the transmission.
The transmission was being run in Neutral, Drive and Reverse
during the fluid fill process, so we were unwittingly getting
some water back into the ruptured oil line as soon as the
engine was shut down and the transmission coolant line
pressure went to zero. Then as soon as the engine was
restarted, we were pumping some oil into the radiator and also
pumping some oil/water mix through the transmission.
The entire cooling system (radiator, all hoses, all water
passages in the engine block and heads, etc.) is now
contaminated with at least some amount of transmission fluid,
so I am seeking advice on how to best remove that oily
residue. We plan to blow out the transmission fluid lines at
the bottom of the radiator to remove as much residual fluid as
we can, and then just cap off the inlet and outlet lines, so
there will no longer be the original oil/water heat exchanger
functionality. (That transmission fluid cooing aspect will be
addressed separately)
Our tentative plan is to refill the radiator with a mixture of
water and a water-based degreaser like Simple Green, or Purple
Power, then run the engine until it's good and warm, then
drain out all the coolant with solvent and oily contaminant.
We will probably do the solvent flush routine until we see no
further trace evidence of transmission oil in the water
coolant -- at least twice -- and then refill with distilled
water and a water-based rust remover called Evapo-Rust to
remove some of the rust that is most certainly all through the
internal coolant passages after the vehicle sat idle for 17
years. I was planning to run that rust-remover coolant
combination for several hours, or at least half a
dozen hot/cooldown cycles before going with a more permanent
water and antifreeze mixture for everyday driving.
What to you guys think of that plan to remove residual tranny
oil from the coolant system?
We plan to connect the transmission cooling lines to an
external auxiliary oil-to-air transmission cooler that will be
located in some open space roughly in front of the bottom of
the radiator wherever it looks like there might be some air
circulation path. I was not planning to have any fan-forced
airflow device, relying just on convective cooling from a
fairly generous finned heat exchanger in whet will likely be a
rather turbulent air flow region (but I have NO way of knowing
that!) I don't know what temperature the transmission fluid
would like to be when it goes back into the tranny after the
cooling process, although I suspect it would be somewhat
higher than the temperature in the radiator, around 190 F as
governed by the thermostat. I will have no reasonable way to
tell what the oil temp is when exiting the auxiliary heat
exchanger, so I won't know if the heat exchanger is doing a
good enough job. I know the air temperature will usually be
considerably cooler than the 190-degree water in the radiator,
but I also know that the heat exchange coefficient of the
oil-to-air cooler is much lower than the HX coefficient of the
original oil/water cooler system.
What do you think of the oil-to-air auxiliary heat exchanger
idea to replace the original oil-to-water system? Any thoughts
or advice are welcomed!
__._,_.___
Posted by: Ray Melton <rfmelton@xxxxxxx>
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