Alright, so lets start at the beginning.

In mid-late August I installed a BM 70268 Trans cooler on my 4R. I installed it using the Timmy the Toolman video, but I removed my rad and only ran the zip-ties through the condenser, not both condenser and rad. I used the line and screw clamps included in the BM packaging, as well as some 3/8 inch bulk line from Advance.

After install, I checked for leaks, nothing, looks and drives ok. The only thing was that it seemed hesitant to accelerate when the car wasn't warm.

About a week later I drove about 300 miles round trip on the highway to Richmond VA, with a lot of mountain highway driving. At some point, my line came off the lower nipple of the cooler and began leaking fluid. By the time I arrived home, the back of the car was soaked in fluid, the car would rev and take a long time (1-2 seconds) to actually engage the driveline when accelerating from a stop, and the next morning I had a red puddle under my car. I was using my phone to monitor trans temp on the drive and even when it was low on fluid it never broke 200 degrees. I go to Advance and I buy 8 Q of Castrol Transmax Import Merc/Dex red ATF. I had to put about 7-8 Quarts in. get in and drive vehicle, no CEL, no shift issues, no high rev at idle, no high trans temperatures. All is well except the BM cooler appears to be leaking. Order a new one from Amazon and get the faulty one replaced. When I swapped for the new one, I really tighten down the screw clamps, and rerun the lines so now the trans doesn't have to pump the fluid upwards as much except for when it is inside the cooler. Drive car, all is well.

Fast forward to October, I'm driving up a slight incline, 55-60 mph in O/D and I feel the trans slip, just once, and then I take it out of O/D and it does fine. It has done it a few times since again, uphill, in O/D, around 60 mph. 65-70 mph, I think the engine is revving high enough to take some of the strain off of the O/D gear to prevent it from slipping because it has never slipped at that speed. The other extremely weird thing is that the acceleration lag is back. I put my foot down and the engine does not rev up as it should normally. It is almost feels like the traction control is preventing me from accelerating. It will eventually let me accelerate after a second or two of no response from the accelerator. One thing to note is that while this sluggishness is correlated with the new cooler, I also tackled upper and lower ball joints up front when I put the cooler in. I'm wondering if the speed sensor isn't getting a good read on the ABS rotor after reinstall? I'm not sure. Also I still have a slight drip of trans fluid coming from the condenser where the cooler is even after tightening down the screw claps as tight as they would go.

SO now what to do. I took it to a trans shop and they told me a rebuilt trans swap from one of their suppliers is 2900. Another shop quoted me 2500 for a rebuild of my current trans (which seems astronomically high for a rebuild). I asked the first shop if a simple drain and refill would help and they said that would actually make things worse because it could compromise some of the current friction between the clutch plates in the transmission. However, some friends have told me do a drain/flush, trans filter replacement, and put a bottle of this Trans Fix in there with some new Valvoline synthetic ATF. The way I see it the car still runs and drives and if I try a few cheap fixes before putting a new transmission in it, I'm not making it any worse. What should I do? Old fluid and add Trans Fix? New fluid and filter no Trans fix? I don't know how transmissions work in the slightest so if you told me to dump old bacon grease in there I would probably believe you.

Thanks for any advice you may have.

Answers/comments in bold

Bad Luck,
Thanks very much for your response.

So, I know explaining a feeling while you're driving is difficult to do over these forums, but ill try. I feel like the hesitation/lag sometimes comes on in a sense of the car starts to rev up under acceleration (to maybe 1000, up from 500 ish at idle) and then hits a wall where it just drops back down to close to idle revs for 1-3 seconds, and then slowly picks back up. So I guess Ill do the trans work and see if it persists.

Also, another symptom I left out of my first short novel was as follows. As I mentioned, I keep an eye on Trans Temp with an Bafx OBDII Bluetooth transmitter and Torque Pro app. When I am on the highway cruising at 60-70mph, the trans maintains normal temps (around 160-176). When I let off the accelerator and coast, transmission temps starts to rise rapidly. Prior to the inline cooler, I could get up to over 200 degrees when just coasting, and then if i reapply accelerator, the temp slowly falls back to normal operating temps. This also has me worried about the TC. What are your thoughts?

Kindly - HokiePokie

Comments in bold

I agree with bad luck. I use a different method for fluid exchange Timmy has a video on it. If it works thats great it will cost you around 100 in parts and less than a day of work when you pull the filter take a picture of what is in the bottom of the pan and show us.

Pictures incoming.


Fluid in the drain pan with light on it
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kn7WxB]

Fluid in a clear bottle from the side with light from the top
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kn7WjA]

Bottom of the pan, I just touched the magnet with my finger
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kncrfT]

Front of pan (closest to driver, near drain plug)
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kn85CK]

Middle of pan
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2knc1iN]

Back of pan
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kn85Jg]

Magnets
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2knbRUP]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2knbRTB]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kncr6Q]

Filter pickup side
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2knbS1A]

Filter Valve Body side
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2kn7WuR]


So obviously there are only 3 magnets, the fourth magnet had at some point come loose and was actually on top of another magnet. I didn't realize until i went to clean them that they were stuck together. Also you can see in the picture of the pickup side of the filter that the whole thing was covered in this thin black film. I assume this to be normal and just dirt buildup from over the years. The concerning thing about the filter is the particulate matter in the square opening at the front-most part of the filter. The fluid color to me looked horrible from the top, that ugly brown almost green. I had replaced the fluid in the pan and then some (almost 8 quarts) when I spewed all the fluid out after my cooler install, so i wasn't expecting it to be that bad. Also it smelled quite bad as well.


Any thoughts on what you see are appreciated. Thanks!

Very common to have fine metal debris on your magnets. When I exchange myfluid all of it at once. I mostly clean the magnets and replace the filters as well. Those filters will plug in time and reduce fluid flow.

You can search the 3rd gen forum here for Brillios bucket fluid exchanger and see how I exchange all the fluid at one time. With 2 graduated buckets and an oil pump.

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That looks like some nasty old fluid that's floating on top of the new fluid. I wouldn't be too concerned about the stuff on the magnets. It doesn't look like there are any big chunks so that's good. Are you just doing the filter and filling it up or are you going to do a transmission flush as well?

Why is the old fluid in pan look greenish?

I've seen it in other vehicles anywhere from bright red to black, but not Green.

Fellas, are we sure no engine coolant has made it in there?

Coolant plus transmission fluid makes this foamy/frothy/glue like residue. More likely that someone at some point has added some sort of trans fluid additive. Some of those like to separate from the transmission fluid at high temps.

Or maybe someone added motor oil?
Even the nastiest trans oil I've seen still has a bit of red in it when put on a paper towel.
The green color is puzzling.

yep, green is strange. Water in the fluid ?

So the green, part of it may be that i was shining an LED flashlight directly into it while taking the picture on my phone. It does not have the same look as your conventional water-in-oil does at all, however my coolant is Prestone green so i suppose it could be. There's definitely no engine oil in there, the car has been in my family for 90% of its life and I like to think that we are not that stupid....

You can see if you zoom in on the pic of the trans fluid in the clear container from the side, that there is a small layer of it on top of the red transmission fluid, maybe its just sludge and grime settling on the top of the fluid, cause when I swish it up it doesn't "milkshake" like mentioned.

I have 3 gallons of Valvoline Max Life Synthetic ATF arriving from Amazon tomorrow, I plan to flush the whole system with the remainder of the fluid after I refill the pan. Amazon.com: Valvoline Multi-Vehicle (ATF) Full Synthetic Automatic Transmission Fluid 1 GA, Case of 3: Automotive

Wish me luck with the reassembly tomorrow and thank you all for your input.

Might be the reflection of the fluid if the flashlight was aimed at it.

Good luck and nothing wrong with exchanging the fluid. Your transmission will thank you for the clean filter, magnets and fluid.

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