Hi guys,

I'm working on a weird project for my 1992 Ford E150, 302 V8, AOD transmission. I need to relocate the radiator. Actually, I need to replace the big radiator with two smaller ones, one on each side (yeah, long story as to why, let's assume it's a dumb idea, you told me, I listened politely but I have to do this anyway so please help me not screw this up even more than it's gonna anyways).

Normally, there'd be two functional areas: a) coolant and b) ATF.

On BMWs, which I'm used to working on, the ATF goes into the radiator and presumably it gets cooled bc from there it goes back to the transmission. There's no separate transmission oil cooler. But on my E150, there IS. And yet the ATF first goes into the radiator even so. SO I'm kinda puzzled as to why. I mean, if I need to plumb the ATF into the replacements radiators so be it, but if it's kinda pointless then heck, I won't.

Or (oooh, idea) is the separate transmission oil cooler on my E150 intended to be supplemental, over and above the ATF cooling function that maybe my radiator still does provide?

Thanks guys!!

~Tanya


My Ford E150 van with the front stuff bolted off

 

Ford plumbs it into the radiator and then to an aux cooler for a reason. They don't spend money to buy that hardware unless there is a reason for it.

Since I was a transmission cooling engineer for a few years at Ford, I know why both coolers are there. It's because both are needed to keep the trans cool when the van is used at it's maximum capacity. I expect that BMWs can't haul and tow as much as the E Series.

 

Thank you, Mark. This is very helpful.

I have a lot of respect for Ford products and the people who make them (kudos and thank you), even more now that I am working on my E150 and I'm sure that when Ford includes something it's for a good reason.

For now I have the lines disconnected and I sometimes have to move the van and it's too heavy for me to push around where it's at and I'm sort of solo in all this so that means I have to drive it. The bumpers misalign height-wise with those of my little old BMW or I'd have pushed it with that. I can't tow it since that would trap my BMW in front of the van. Weird space situation, mine. Kinda struggling.

So, even if it's only maybe twenty feet that I drive the van then it's spewing ATF as I drive so that means I'm running around with a bag of kitty litter to keep the neighbors and Al Gore off my case. I finally hung a plastic drain pan underneath it to catch the ATF. I also added a crude spray deflector to convert the horizontal spray into vertically down, as in, spray into the pan -- but this is all super-lame I'm eager to at least go a tiny less-lame step up from that. I know this is sort of like improving from eating dog crap to eating sand, but hey, it's at least better.

So now thanks to your post I understand that if I bypass the radiator and I drive minimal distances (like 20 feet) I'm not gonna do something that destroys the transmission right away.

Thank you again. :-)

~Tanya

 

That would be a key statement there. I think it would depend on the load your weird project was placing on the transmission. My gut feeling is that those coolers are both needed if you are towing heavy loads through the Rockies. If you aren't towing anything and are just tooling around with a light load, you might not need either. If your project falls somewhere in between, try to keep at least one of the coolers I'd say.

I'm not an official Ford transmission Engineer, but I have some engineering credentials and a fair amount of E series experience.

 

Um yeah something like that. Maybe get a hose barb coupler and plug the radiator transmission lines together if you have to move it around like that. Driving around with no radiator is fine if it's 20 ft but I wouldn't do much more than that. The transmission running out of fluid isn't going to kill it, but running out of coolant is a little more concerning.

 

Thank you :-) This is all helpful and logical and I need all the help I can get.

I'm a software engineer when I'm not lying with my hair in a puddle of motor oil, so I'm used to thinking in terms of versions. Ironically I just emailed one of my clients as to how the version of software she wanted to have desperately and urgently, she got, but it doesn't have all the bells and whistles she wants now and had I delayed releasing it until it had those too she'd have been outta business by now.

Same with this weird project.

Version 1.0 was driving while leaving a trail of ATF and then having to walk behind with a bag of kitty litter to soak it all up.

Version 1.1 was driving with a $8.99 5-gallon plastic Autozone drip pan tied underneath the van using ... dare I say this ... an old Mercedes-Benz spark plug wire. This also left a trail of ATF because the line sprayed the fluid straight out. So again, this meant me having to walk behind with a bag of kitty litter to soak it all up.

Version 1.2 was adding something over the end of the line so the fluid doesn't go all over my parking lot but into the drip pan. Major improvement, that.

Version 1.3 is to connect the two free lines and have a closed circuit once again, and retire the spark plug wire, drip pan and kitty litter.

Version 2 will be to have a semi-decent radiator for a smaller automatic-transmission vehicle mounted to the side, hence with the transmission-oil cooling function included. And of course the van will run too hot but for driving around the block it'll do.

Version 2.1 will have two such radiators mounted with a total surface area that might mean there's finally some hope of providing a decent rate of cooling. I live by the Sierras so there's no absence of mountains with which to test my theory, and the van has a class 4 towbar so I could really load it up and see how it does. A transmission oil temperature sending unit with gauge would be part of version 2.1 so that my first indication of "oops, I guess it ran too hot" is not the transmission failing due to overheating.

Version 2.2 might be a bigger or better pair of radiators, and so on.

Sorta like MS Windows. Versions 1 and 2, huh. Version 3, nice for playing solitaire maybe. (actually it could do way more, but what did I know?) and now apparently version 10 will be holograms like in Iron Man. Definitely some improvement, there. Unless someone REALLY likes simplicity. Then maybe my drip pan and spark plug wire version might be ideal. I recommend version 1.2 without the kitty litter.

Version 1.11 woulda been to tie the bag of kitty litter (with a hole in it) underneath the engine so as the van drives it cleans up its own mess. :-)

Seriously: thank you.

~Tanya

 

No idea what you have in mind here for your experiment but I suspect that you want to keep that secret. Anyhow you sound like the code writing type. Nothing wrong with that but you might benefit from involving a mechanical type person to help make your project successful. You're on the right track when you mention transmission oil temperature. If you plan to alter the transmission cooling, you'll need to watch that temp. I don't know what the normal operating temps are, but I'm sure you could find that info. You haven't mentioned much about the engine coolant, but the photo you posted shows a van without a radiator and you talked replacing the radiator with two smaller radiators. That's another thing you'll need to monitor for temp and pay attention to. Good luck with whatever you are doing there...

 

One on each side of what? Are you going to fit a Tucker Torpedo swiveling headlight?

BTDT moving an automatic transmission car without a radiator. I wanted to reposition the car from nose in to nose out in the garage. No coolant = no problem, but I forgot about the ATF! I wouldn't start let alone move the car without bridging the cooler lines. The transmission will drain itself through the cooler lines in a couple of minutes of idling.

Sixto
93 E150 Chateau 5.8 190K miles

 

Hello again,

Thank you for helpful input (and by implication) your patience with me.

Good point as to the coolant. I drained that. So for those 20 feet the van is running on no coolant which isn't gonna make it overheat but the water pump lacks lubrication which greatly worries me. So I've been working on a pipe to connect the top and bottom hose and there's a Prestone-flush-type connection already in the van, so I can at least get some coolant back in there and get it to stay in there, which I'm very eager to do. Probably the engine thermally likes it better to have coolant in the jackets in the block and head too, so more reason to do this. Plus probably other reasons I don't even know. Getting the pipe connectors just the right size has been a pain but I'm close.

No, the plan is not secret. I just tend to do things in a weird way. For any particular plan of mine, you could probably go get a consensus from the vast majority of the populace as to it being a dumb idea and it'll probably fail, and most of the times they're right but the few victories I have make up for the losses which is how I'm still alive (and in business).

I got kinda tired of being told over and over I'm an idiot and what I'm doing is dumb and will probably fail. That's what I've been hearing all my life, and it doesn't deter me but after hearing this for a thousand years or so, wow, it gets old. So I tend to try to limit public exposure of my stupidity on a need-to-know basis.

Since you're being so nice to me, I'll tell you the plan, and if any reader chooses to opine that it's a dumb idea, and why, then let's assume that's already been said and gratitude has been expressed for that input.

Basically, I founded and I manage several small companies. Two of my businesses buy and sell used BMW and Mercedes-Benz parts, and one of them buys and improves 1980s classic cars (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Alfa Romeo and I also have a Jeep Grand Wagonneer, a couple of interesting Volvos and a Starion). Anyway, maybe one day, a few of these will be auctioned off at Monterey for vast amounts of money and it'll all have been worth while. Until then the cars sit around in various places in the Nevada desert gathering dust, dry-rotting the rubber parts and the interiors and fading the paint, and perhaps also slowly appreciating. I'm in no hurry. I buy non-rusty cars for maybe $500 and then it's hard to expect things to depreciate from there. I mean, I have a rust-free Alfa Romeo Spider that I bought for $500. A Mercedes-Benz 1989 300SE that I bought for $500. A 1968 Mercedes-Benz 250S that I bought for $500. A 1973 Volvo 145 that I bought for $300. And so on.

And yes, having a car sit is bad for it. So I like my cars to be able to run, and then for a particular car, I register and insure it and I drive it for a month or two. And then I park it again (and keep the tires inflated, move the car to prevent flat spots on the tires, and start the engine regularly and drive it around the yard). And of course, Stabil in all the fuel tanks.

Somewhere along the way, as part of all this, I need to buy and/or sell used engines and transmissions.

When I would like to buy or sell a used engine to stick into a good car, maybe it’s good, maybe it’s not. I can and should do many tests with the engine out of the car … but I think the only way to test an engine, and a transmission, is to have them in a functioning vehicle and DRIVE IT — ideally for a long distance and with varying road conditions. Most times when someone buys a used engine or transmission he waters down the price because it's so risky and if it fails it's a huge pain. (That goes for me too).

The cars I work on tend to be space-constrained so it’s a jigsaw puzzle to get an engine or transmission in and out of the relevant car. Certainly as a test, it’s inefficient. When I compare those cars to my beloved E150 van with wide open spaces almost EVERYWHERE then I wish I could just stick my to-be-tested BMW or Mercedes-Benz or Volvo or Alfa Romeo engines into the van without having it be such a pain as when the engine is going into its proper place. Kinda like having a wedding in an airplane toilet, with bride, groom, priest, witness all there. You could probably do it ... but not fun.

And then I thought, well, why not? So, now I’m working on that plan: making my van more accessible as to accepting engines being put in and out more easily from the front.

As in, imagine a smallish steel subframe sitting on a pallet ... for now let's assume it's a 3' x 4' rectangle of square tubing (though yes, some triangulation would be better). Onto that I lower from my gantry an engine with automatic transmission attached plus the engine wiring harness including the computer. I put it into place, and bolt it down.

Now imagine a drawer, as in a chest of drawers. The sub-frame is like the drawer. The subframe goes in front of the van as if it were an open drawer. And then closing the drawer essentially shoves the engine and transmission backwards in position in the van.

The subframe slides on some rails which are in turn attached to the van. That's the plan, anyway.

I hook up the exhaust and a drive-shaft. Those are both custom units specific to that engine and my van. I deal with only maybe a dozen basic variations of engines so no worries there. And I have a friend who does custom welding for me in his local muffler shop, and a friend who does custom drive shaft work. I'm nice to them and I pay them and they put up with my weird ideas. Worst case they make some money and have one more funny Tanya story to tell, is how they see it.

I hook up the radiator and battery and instrumentation wiring (though I'm toying with the idea of putting that on the sub-frame too, in which case I don't need two radiators so I can run the whole engine while it's on the sub-frame as a last pre-install test).

The rest of the front of the van, then, is assembled in a sort of "click-in-place" subframe too ... bumper, grille, headlight base.

I put in enough safety measures so when I hit the brakes the stuff doesn't skid out and land in front of the van.

Then: "oh hi, dear customer, so you'd like to buy an engine for your BMW 325i? Yes, you should have changed that timing belt sooner, huh? Yeah, wow. Anyway, in an hour or two I'll have an engine for you in a vehicle you can borrow. Drive it, test it, drive it to your mechanic, have him test it, and then if you like you can even drive the vehicle to where you plan to do the engine swap so you don't have to worry about transporting the engine you buy from me. You transported it by driving it there. SO convenient, I agree. Don't worry, the price reflects that too. And yes, you have to sign a whole bunch of legal forms in case you're a jerk. And I keep your firstborn as a deposit until I have the vehicle back."

So, that's the plan. :-)

~Tanya (no, not on drugs, and yes, a real blonde).

 

Thank you for your input. :-) My plan is more weird than you might have guessed, but I like your style!!

This might be a good time to say that the 302 V8 runs great but it fails to idle and neither I nor my very savvy gearhead mechanic can figure out why. And he's already offered me $250 for the engine as a core but I'm too fond of it to sell it as such. If my shenanigans end up damaging this nice engine, then he at least gets to buy it.

The AOD in the van is shot too ... the second one so far. I'm proving right all the people who said "If you pull massive weights back and forth over the Sierras behind your van with an AOD, you'll soon kill it." And I did. But doing this was the best option at the time. That's another story. Enough Tanya stories for the day (or maybe the whole decade, if your chatty-blonde tolerance is low).

~Tanya

 

Thinking outside the box! Grand idea!

I'd be temped to rig up a jig in the back of an old Chevy LUV pickup, bolt the test engine to the jig, and fasten a large airplane prop to the crankshaft...whoohooo! Sounds like we're in the same box!




But seriously....it still sounds like a lot of work to sell an engine...but you've been doing it...thats what matters.

Remember, the automatic transmission shares cooling and HEATING with the main radiator...it helps with cooling in severe loading and hot conditions, but it also provides a quicker warm-up to the tranny fluid on severely cold mornings...or extended driving in sub-zero temps when lightly loaded...

I doubt you have much of either of those to worry about, and certainly not on normal engine testing, 5 or 10 mile trips.

If its just a test mule, and you wont be pulling 10,000 pound campers or car trailers, and you dont foresee a lot of driving in sub-freezing weather, its my opinion that you could forgo the ATF lines (and embeded cooler piping) in either of the two new smaller radiators. (those radiator/s would need the embeded cooler in the radiator tank)

I would, of course, use electric fans on those smaller radiators including the AT cooler,...but you probably already thought of that....you know, probably being slightly less 'blonde' than you infer...

Have you thought of some type of full size radiator in a frame with hinges so that it could swing out of the way?

Also, many trikes on the road that are powered by large automotive engines, have the nice aluminum radiator that is remote mounted at the back of the trike, with a large electric fan moving air through it. Just some options to consider.

One more thing Tanya...look into purchasing a few wheel dollies...might make things easier for you moving vehicles around in the shop.





http://www.northerntool.com/shop/too...+wheel-dollies

 

Love chatty blondes!

 

Hi Brian!

Thank you for the encouragement, socially and technically. :-) And, really good points too!!!

~Tanya

 

A few things jump out at me:

1) The E150 doghouse is biased toward the passenger side - the E150 driver has a decent footwell while the front passengers best not have a left leg. BMW and MB inline engines have long intake manifold runners with lots of stuff hanging on the driver side. There could be fitment issues.

2) BMW and MB engines generally have front sumps while E150 engines have rear sumps. That might mean cross member interference.

3) With the electronics and plumbing in an '80s German engine, the 4 bolts holding an E150 radiator in place is inconsequential. Maybe you can adapt the big paper clips MB uses to hold radiators in place -



4) An old CJ-7 or USPS jeep might be better suited -



Sixto
93 E150 Chateau 5.8 190K miles

 

Wow, thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much for the magnificently detailed reply!!!

I felt SO self-conscious when I explained in a previous post what my plan is, sorta like painting a "ridicule me" target on my back but your insightful reply makes it worth while even if some folks physically find me and stand outside on the sidewalk by my front door and yell "stupid" at me.

I mean, wow. And, yes to the CJ or Postal Jeep. Presumably ones without drivetrain are cheaper.

So now thanks to your post I'm considering buttoning the van back up and sell it. :-)

Thank you again!!

~Tanya