The torque convertor in my truck dismantled itself internally sending metal through out the transmission and coolers. The shop I had rebuild it said to bypass the cooler in my rad and install a larger aux. cooler in its place. I understand the reason for this but I am wondering if i could just install a magnetic inline filter now that i have flushed the coolers forward and backward several times. With a ford reman they say to flush the lines and inrad cooler, replace the oil to air cooler and install the inline filter supplied with the tranny. What do you think?

 

Assuming the cooler was properly flushed, I would go ahead and keep it in the system. It cools yes, but more importantly it warms up the tranny when the air is cold so that it performs better in cold weather.

If you are nervous I would install one of those inline full filtration filters, looks like a regular spin on oil filter. The biggest headache in my experience is finding enough flat space to mount these things. Mine is under the coolant recovery/washer tank and mounted on the fender well on my 94 F250.

Some shops say it is really hard to properly flush the cooler after a breakdown. I am no expert but I have had a few vehicles, lunch the tranny and after a rebuild and thorough flushing, the intank cooler was still be used, along with the factory aux cooler. Never had a tranny fail twice but then I haven't keept a vehicle longer than 180K so far.

I have a spin on filter on my 250 and am seriously considering one for my chebby after it ate a tranny last year. The reason why is that I religiously changed atf on that tranny and checked color and smell all the time. There was no indication there was any trouble until about a week before the tranny made grinding noises(like a brake drum). The shop told me that typical for that model, the tranny will wear out the sun shell and metal bits will start to circulate which then destroys everything else. So I am thinking if I have a spin on, that those bits won't circulate, next time, if ever, to cause more damage. Ditto for converter chunks. You may still have a failure but it will be limited since there won't be as much debris circulating.

A few years back the same shop told me not to add one of those filters since it leads to laziness on maintenance and since you are less prone to drop the pan, you won't see the bits that indicate a developing problem. I am starting to think, yeah you won't see the bits, but then they won't accelerate the problem. MAYBE at my next schduled change I would have noticed some changes, even though the bits would not be circulating.

I am no expert and am making guesses here and of course doing an experiement with my 250 with the filter. I am thinking that the damage would not have been as bad if there was a filter on my chebby but then I may not have noticed a problem.

I guess you makes your bets and rolls the dice. In my case I have one filter and am seriously considering another, if I can find room under the hood.

Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

 

a new tranny cooler isnt much more than one of the magnetic filters, especially as seeing youll probobally have a lot of maintenance on the filter, and none with th e new cooler. If it was mine, there would be no doubt id replace the cooler.


--John

EDIT:

Plus if "The shop I had rebuild it said to bypass the cooler in my rad and install a larger aux. cooler in its place" they probobally wont warranty the tranny if you bring it back for ANY problem if you dont do what they said to do to it. Something to think about.