teotwaki,

From your below picture of the elbow hose exiting the radiator. This is the point on the FJ Cruise where people tie the transmission cooler into the system. I thought you tied into the system at this point.

The kit arrived yesterday. I ordered the Iconic mount with the Hayden 698 cooler. I am prepping the kit for an install this weekend. I added a push nut bolt retainer to hold the spacer, though it isn't needed (just makes things a little easier). I also added a washer to use between the nut and mounting point, also not really needed.

I have a couple questions though.
Where does the edge trim guard that came with the kit go?

How did others add the extra transmission fluid to the system? Did you fill the external transmission cooler when connecting the hoses, or did you top the system off with a quart of oil while it was running?

Anyone with a kit have new updates?

I'm planning to install mine this weekend (if I feel well enough). I ordered some spring action hose clamps from Toyota to link to the OEM transmission return line (those arrive on Monday this week). The Toyota camps are Not required, but I wanted to match the style in the engine compartment to make it easier in case I need to stop using the external cooler for any reason. I also picked up some Toyota WS ATF last Friday. I ordered an inexpense hose pump to make it easier to top the transmission off.

Amazon.com

Installed my cooler yesterday. It was definitely a pain getting your hands in tight spaces and routing hoses in the engine bay but totally doable. Definitely ran into issues with spacing and mounting etc since I have a winch in the way. I had to modify the mount a little bit. I'm going to monitor it to see if there's any issues with rubbing etc. I think later on I will totally reverse the whole cooler on the mount and give it more room, but that's down the road.

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Ordered a bracket for my stock TRDORP, I have a hayden 678 sitting in my garage waiting to be installed... I will post pics once I have it in

My bracket was delivered last week. It was shipped quickly, and I'm really happy with the quality. Yesterday I mounted the cooler, but ran out of time to make the connections into to the cooling loop. I didn't want to rush things, since this is the first time I've installed a cooler, so I wanted to step back and take another look at how/where people were making connections.





Between sketches here and youtube videos, it seems there are a few options. So taking all that info, I came up with some drawings based on other sketches in this thread that might help other noobs like me. Maybe I'm being paranoid, or just overly cautious, but I know trans fluid level is critical, and I'd rather not have to go through the drain/fill process right now.

So, after crawling around under the vehicle and looking at the various hoses and hard lines, here's my version of the sketches and options. Since I have not actually made my connections yet, the narrative on fluid loss during installation is only speculative. Comments are welcome and I can adjust the sketches as feedback is received. So have at it... let me know your thoughts...

zkengle

GREAT drawings! You captured things well.

Let me know how hard it is to get at the top of the OEM hard lines if you go that route. It's a cramped space. I eventually want to go the route of abandoning one of the OEM hard lines and shorten one of my hoses

@teotwaki - thank you! Hoping they help some people.

I'm going to make final connections this weekend and I'll be sure to post some pictures. My next camping trip isnext weekend, so that will be the test of how well this works.

I have some baseline temp readings for future comparison. On my ~20 mile evening commute I would hit around 185f A/T pan temp and about 200f max torque converter temp.



Towing about 3,000lbs to camp last weekend, I hit almost 220f A/T pan temp, with the TC maxing out at almost 240f. That was after 175 miles and heading up into the mountains of Northern PA (so nothing too crazy).


(Screenshots are from Torque app, connected to Veepeak OBDCheck BLE+ Bluetooth 4.0 OBD II Scanner. Ignore the avg mpg - that seems to calculate really high for my regular commute. Its fairly close for my camping trip, maybe just a little high.)

I'm still going back and forth on which option I'll go with. Option 3 seems like it would probably provide the least restricted flow, but I'm concerned about loosing too much fluid during the process.

So I think I'm leaning towards Option 2 right now - seems to be a good compromise with minimal risk for fluid loss. Still might even pour some fresh fluid in the hoses just for the heck of it. Obviously can't fill the whole cooler with fluid since it will be cold and the bypass will be open, but it seems like every little bit would help.