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!
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