Stock oil cooler as auxilliary tranny cooler?

[Randee of the Redwoods]

That big honkin' oil cooler sure looks uh big. But how big? Is it large enough to be utilized as something other than an oil cooler? Say, an automatic transmission cooler? I'm not worried about adapting the fittings. Custom fittings will take care of that. But if the stock oil cooler has an acceptable amount of cooling capacity, why not?

[rjschoolcraft]

I posted this picture...

http://www.schoolcraftpowertrain.com/Pictures_&_Data/IM001299.JPG

in this thread (http://forum.thedieselpage.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=008901).

Is this what you are talking about?

[john8662]

I asked something like this a long time ago concerning 6.2, I had a factory external oil cooler that was used with a 454 that I wanted to use with ATF for the trans. I asked and Dr. Lee responded and basically said it'll work, but be sure to flush the cooler out thourally!

Nice adaptation Ronnie, glad I don't tow what you do, I'll probably leave my trans cooler alone unless I do the same and go with the DSG cooler.

[LanduytG]

When I rebuilt my 95 I did the same thing except I bought a new one. All that needs to be done is short the top bracket a bit. Also what I bought had 3/8" MPT fittings so it was easy to adapter.

Greg

[Randee of the Redwoods]

That's what I thought. That big stock oil cooler on my truck(k3500) is a tough stacked plate design used by B&M(hmmm, B&M=OEM supplier?). I BOUGHT a 28k B&M cooler for my old Jimmy for $60 to used as a tranny cooler. Adapting the lines was not a problem, but I had to buy extra adapters for the cooler. But I was at the junkyard one day a while back and saw an old Chevy van that still had the old stock oil cooler on it. The idea hit me, but I didn't follow up on it. But now I may try it as I can probably get an old oil cooler for cheap.
Eh. We'll see. I still have the remote mount oil filter project to do first.

[MJEasly]

What would I use to properly flush the oil cooler for its new job as a trans cooler?

[Diesel Dan]

To flush the cooler I used a parts washer and barbed fittings on the cooler. Hooked the solvent hose to the cooler and flushed in both directions for probably a couple of hours. Then filled it with clean carb cleaner and blew out with compressed air. Might have been a little excessive but better safe than sorry.

[damork]

Long Mfg is the OEM cooler supplier for GM, and from what I've seen, they also make B&M stacked plate coolers. I found this when I bought a Tru Cool stacked plate cooler for my truck from www.bulkpart.com (http://www.bulkpart.com) - Long's name was stamped in my OEM unit as well as the new one. They had a website at one time which gave some info on this.