Aftermarket CRD TC/Tranny/TCM Info

retmil46 · **Posted:** Fri Jan 26, 2007 1:20 pm

Might be another possibility for mounting an aux tranny cooler. If you look under the front end to where you can see the tranny line connections to the cooler, below the connections looks to be a flat cross brace about 2 to 3 inches wide. Depending on measurements, you might be able to mount a frame rail cooler or a "heat sink" type cooler such as made by Derale, www.derale.com .

That would have the advantage of not blocking off air flow thru the electric fan and factory cooler.

Ranger1 · **Joined:** Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:40 pm **Posts:** 1137

Quote:

Looking at the hard line connections to the bottom of the factory cooler, I don't immediately recognize what type/size of connectors those are. Anyone have any idea?

Its a quick-disconnect fitting - FSM shows a special collar type tool used to unlock it. Maybe ordinary parts store has them.

retmil46 · **Posted:** Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:16 pm

Ranger1 wrote:

Quote:

Looking at the hard line connections to the bottom of the factory cooler, I don't immediately recognize what type/size of connectors those are. Anyone have any idea?

Its a quick-disconnect fitting - FSM shows a special collar type tool used to unlock it. Maybe ordinary parts store has them.

Hopefully they would, they have them for practically every other type of OEM quick disconnect these days. But it does add an extra small degree of complication to rigging up an aux cooler.

Stopped by my local tranny shop yesterday, just to BS for a few minutes and tell him what I'd learned, and get his outlook on adding a aux cooler.

I told him about the new pump and front cover. He liked the idea that they may have beefed up the pump, but seemed quite dubious about their choice to move the seal from the pump into the cover. Having rebuilt a few of these trannys, he stated that that had better be a pretty hefty front cover if it was going to hold up and seal properly.

Ranger1 · **Joined:** Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:40 pm **Posts:** 1137

I don't plan to disturb the quick disconnect fittings - I'll cut the rubber line and plumb the aux cooler in as I did on the 02. Using the return line from the factory cooler, I can re-route from there into the aux cooler, then from the aux cooler back into the return rubber line to the tranny. Keeps the factory fittings intact and only one line is modified. The factory aluminum tranny cooling lines convert to ordinary transmission hose line just underneath the radiator.

Ranger1 · **Joined:** Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:40 pm **Posts:** 1137

Quote:

I told him about the new pump and front cover. He liked the idea that they may have beefed up the pump, but seemed quite dubious about their choice to move the seal from the pump into the cover. Having rebuilt a few of these trannys, he stated that that had better be a pretty hefty front cover if it was going to hold up and seal properly.

I wondered about that very issue when DZL_LOU posted those pictures a while ago. It seems to me that if the seal is mounted to the pump itself, it floats with the pump shaft and has little torque stress differential between the tranny bell-housing and input shaft. If the cover plate is tightly inserted to the tranny body, as the tranny shaft moves under heavy load, I would guess that the seal is now facing movement from the cover plate at a different rate than the torque on the tranny input shaft.

Another one of those areas where we can't tell if its good or bad until some time and miles accumulate.

retmil46 · **Posted:** Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:52 pm

Ranger1 wrote:

I don't plan to disturb the quick disconnect fittings - I'll cut the rubber line and plumb the aux cooler in as I did on the 02. Using the return line from the factory cooler, I can re-route from there into the aux cooler, then from the aux cooler back into the return rubber line to the tranny. Keeps the factory fittings intact and only one line is modified. The factory aluminum tranny cooling lines convert to ordinary transmission hose line just underneath the radiator.

Ok, I win the DA award for the day - I hadn't looked underneath and assumed that it was hard line all the way back. :oops:

Dealing with rubber hose makes connection and location decisions much easier.

Is the factory tranny cooler on the '02 the same setup as the CRD? From looking at the size of the cooler, my tranny guy seemed to feel that it should have been adequate. But then he based part of his decision on feeling the temp of the inlet line. I told him the beast had been shut down cold iron for nearly a week, and I'd only driven it 6 miles at 45 mph, but that didn't seem to faze him. Inlet line was warm, but you could comfortably hold onto it.

I drove around another 10 miles before coming home, and then got out and checked the temp of the inlet line before shutting it off. Felt hot enough to give you first or second degree burns if you tried holding your hand on it.

Even if his call was right, that the factory cooler should be adequate for normal daily driving, I'd still want the peace of mind with an aux cooler for long distance high speed interstate driving and towing.

I have had an auto tranny go out before due to inadequate cooling, on a '79 V6 Mustang. After the gent rebuilt the tranny and added an aux cooler (his opinion was that it had failed due to inadequate cooling and heat damage), I was able to get an extra 50 miles on a tank of gas - no small feat with a 12 gallon tank, 2 barrel carb, and 3 speed Ford slushbox.

Ranger1 · **Joined:** Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:40 pm **Posts:** 1137

Tranny cooler on 02 is entirely different from CRD. The 02 was the only Liberty to use an in-tank radiator tranny cooler. The cooling lines plumb into the passenger side of the radiator near the top. 03 and up switched to a large, air cooled tranny cooler mounted in front of the AC condenser. This cooler looked to be approximately 4 or 5 inches tall and the same size as the radiator in length. It was much larger than the integrated cooler used on the CRD in 05 models. Remember, this larger cooler was used on much less torque and a smaller transmission with far less tranny fluid in it (42RLE).

For heat comparisons - I used to check my 02 after driving home 25 Interstate miles, as well as an alternate stop and go route home. Before the aux cooler, touching either line to the in tank cooler would burn ones fingers in seconds - serious, shiny burns. So much for factory cooling. A tranny shop told me that factory coolers are built to last to warranty without serious towing in mind.

After adding the aux cooler, which is quite small in comparison to what could be added on my 02, the aux cooler cold return line is warm, but not even close to burning temps, even in hot August daytime driving. The hot supply side to the aux cooler will burn my fingers instantly. May DC's bean counters break down constantly in every small town with a rooster laden pickup truck garage in America. Or at a 5 Star dealership, which can be much the same in service attitude.

In comparison, on my CRD, the hot tranny cooler input line from the transmisssion is far hotter than anything I ever touched on the stock 02 input line. Much worse. So not only did DC cheat on the TC quality, they used an integrated tranny cooler which, in my opinion, is so inadequate that for those of us with 100F summertime temperatures, can only result in early transmission problems (not TC, but transmission clutches). Idiocy, pure and simple, even when measured by bean counter minds - a better cooler would spare them warranty rebuilds - but they figured that out too - cut the warranty on the tranny to 36K miles.

A $50 aux tranny cooler would do wonders for the CRD, once it has its other shortcomings addressed. I wouldn't add one before doing DC's F37 - they appear to be looking for any way out of warranty fixes on this model.

BioJeep · **Posted:** Sat Jan 27, 2007 3:41 pm

Excellent thread! Thanks for all the work.

retmil46 · **Posted:** Mon Jan 29, 2007 12:20 pm

I think I may have found an alternative to placing an aux cooler behind the grille.

If you look just underneath the front bumper, where the tow hooks are mounted, there's a quite sizeable area where you could easily mount a 12" to 18" frame rail, heat sink, or stacked plate cooler without any clearance problems. The back side of this area is open to the electric fan and factory cooler so you'll get plenty of air flow, and in close proximity to the factory cooler connections and hoses. And it's recessed to some extent inside the bumper, so you'll have protection from road debris.

The upper part of this space, to which the tow hooks are mounted, is solid metal. It's roughly 20" between the inner mounting bolts of the two tow hooks. You could either mount directly to the frame, or add some simple brackets off the tow hook mounting bolts.

As far as temp control, the fluid getting too cold in winter, most of the websites I checked now offer a thermostat you can plumb in line with the cooler. If fluid temp is below 180, it will bypass the aux cooler and send it on to the tranny (if plumbed in after the factory cooler), and once above 180 will shift over and send it thru the aux cooler as well.

Without trying to describe and restate all the measurements, if you take a look at this area under the bumper, you'll see that it presents us with several more options for rigging up an aux cooler.

G-funk · **Posted:** Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:05 pm

retmil46 wrote:

Guys, check out this link -

www.suncoastconverters.com/Jeep/jeep_products.html

Suncoast has added a Jeep Diesel Products page to their website.

that is f'n sweet. I'll have to see how taxes and profit sharing goes, maybe I'll pick one up the end of next month.

TDI4BY · **Joined:** Sun Apr 02, 2006 11:56 pm **Posts:** 644

Billet SunCoast converter!!!! YES!!!! I had a Dodge Diesel before the Jeep and it's good to see we are going to finally get some aftermarket support like the big guys

retmil46 · **Posted:** Sun Feb 04, 2007 8:42 pm

Went down to Northern Tool in Huntersville today and picked up an non-contact thermometer, to check out just what temps this tranny might be running at.

It was at most 40 F outside today, and did a 25 mile run back up I-77 at 70 mph, going past my usual exit by about 3 miles and pulling into a rest area, so I could immediately jump out with the beast still running and check temps.

Tranny pan - 126 F, Inlet line at cooler - 126 F, Outlet line at cooler - 112 F.

I started off again, went up about 3 miles to the next exit and turned around and came back to my usual exit, stopping at a hardware store for about 20 minutes. I then started for home, on secondary roads at 35 and 45 mph for about 5 miles, before stopping to top off the tank. 5 minutes for this, then another 3 miles at 35 and 45 mph to home, the last mile essentially being coasting pretty much downhill at 35 mph.

Pulling up in the driveway, I got out and checked temps again with the engine still running.

Tranny pan - 139 F, Inlet line at cooler - 138 F, Outlet line at cooler - 122 F.

In both cases, the electric fan was not running.

On the face of it, this seems to prove the statements that lockup does make the tranny more efficient and help reduce fluid temps.

It looks as though the stock cooler is reasonably efficient, with just the air flow at idle it was able to reduce fluid temp by 15 F, and apparently was able to maintain fluid temp below 130 F on a lengthy 70 mph run, albeit on a 40 F day.

However, running less than 10 miles at 45 mph, after sitting for 20 minutes and a 5 minute stop in between, with the torque converter acting as a "normal" torque converter, sent temps close to 20 F higher than the 25 mile/70 mph run did when in lockup.

The area of concern looks to be lower speed driving, stop and go, less than 50 mph, when the tranny is not in lockup. You could have knocked me over with a feather when a high speed romp on the interstate produced lower temps than the sedate drive back from the hardware store.

I'd still like to see how good of a job that stock cooler does on a 95 F day with the A/C going as well, before I pronounced judgement on whether or not I needed an aux cooler. But at least for now I'd also add in a bypass thermostat for the aux cooler for winter driving.

Ranger1 · **Joined:** Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:40 pm **Posts:** 1137

Similar results on my 02, but much higher temps, Mitch when measured in July. In this weather, I doubt you'll see much higher than 150 - 170 F worst case. Hot summer temperatures really change the picture. Worst case is city stop and go driving, with multiple stops, as in several trips to different stores, where heat soak occurs in between without cooling effect. The tranny fluid temperature continues to rise once the engine shuts off and will remain elevated for a good 15 minutes before starting to cool down, in summer temperatures. I discovered this on my 02 with PC software reading the tranny temps. I haven't checked the 02 in winter temps - I'll give it a try next week.

I read the tranny temps on my stock 02 with pc based software the first summer I owned it. After reading those temps, I installed the aux cooler. Interstate driving tranny temps on the stock 02 rarely went above 185 or 190F. City driving was a different story. Any driving where the TC unlocks seemed to cause large temperature rises. Stop and go city driving in summertime ambient air temps of 95 F produced dramatic temperature increases to 200 or 205, as read by the internal tranny temperature sensor through the obdii port. I have seen as high as 210F on my 02 prior to installing an aux cooler. This was idling after a 10 mile summertime drive in stop and go, parked in the parking deck at work, with electric and mechanical fans both running. AC off would drop the temps around 10F, but is unbearable in stop and go traffic.

The 545RFE tranny temperature sensor is located deep inside the tranny, on the valve body assembly and is used by the TCM to adjust tranny shift point performance via 5 or 6 different temperature maps. There is also an overheat light on the dashboard which will activate around 244F iirc from the FSM manual. Unfortunately, if the fluid temperature reaches 244F damage is already happening in the form of greatly accelerated wear on seals and clutches. Only one time have I seen the tranny temperature warning light activate on my 02 Liberty and it was after driving non stop from Lexington KY to Charlotte NC and stopping for a few minutes while idling. The tranny temp light came on for about 5 seconds then went out. The tranny fluid odor had a sharp burnt tinge when I flushed it out and added the aux cooler at 24K miles. 30K miles later, since the aux cooler, no warning light ever, tranny fluid odor is fine, and temps stay in the 160F to 175F max in hot summertime in city stop and go driving. Interstate is generally 150 to 165F after full warmup, even with the few summertime days when outside air temps exceed 100F.

City stop and go driving:
When decelerating from 35 mph, then stopping at each stoplight, the temp would rapidly rise to 185F to 195F, and if a long light sometimes to 200F. The tranny fluid temp would also rise dramatically on acceleration from stoplights, then slowing at the next stoplight, sometimes 20 to 25 degrees F, always to the 195 F or higher range. It coincided with the lack of airflow across the radiator, regardless of whether the electric radiator fan was running or not, or on acceleration. Once TC lockup was reached, temps would decline. I don't know by measurement if these kinds of tranny temps are isolated to the 02 Liberty automatic 45RFE or not. My guess is they aren't, since DC is adding a larger tranny cooler as part of the CRD pump upgrade kit. Why some CRD's should need larger tranny coolers rather than all of them seems illogical to me.

Unfortunately, my software cannot read the CRD tranny temperature - different PCM. The tranny temperature is one of the vehicle specific features which is not covered under the Federal mandate that all emissions related parameters be available to 3rd party toolset manufacturers - with a Bosch PCM, I doubt we'll see anything soon for the CRD readers. If anyone has been able to read tranny temps via a scangauge on a CRD I'd be interested in what your summertime temps are.

retmil46 · **Posted:** Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:55 pm

If all other things were equal between the '02 and the CRD, and everything in good working order, I'd expect the '02 to have higher fluid temps in general simply due to the type of cooler it used.

With an in-tank radiator cooler, you're going to be limited by what temps the radiator and cooling system are designed to operate at. The temperature of the engine coolant returning from the radiator is the temperature of your heat sink, and the tranny fluid will never be able to be cooler than this - in fact, always higher due to the nature of heat transfer and fluid flow.

You're also having to make an extra transition across an extra boundary - from tranny to tranny fluid thru cooler to engine coolant thru radiator to air. All other things being equal, that extra transition by itself will add inefficiency.

I don't know if the size of the air cooler is a factor or not, when compared to other gas KJ's. A lot is going to depend on the design of the cooler. A 24" by 2" by 1 1/2" tube and fin frame rail cooler from Permacool is rated for 11,000 GVW, while a 13" by 3" by 2" stacked plate cooler from the same company is rated for over 20,000 GVW. But like you, given my experience so far with DC, I'm also inclined to think that smaller = less capable.

Another factor - I'm using a non-contact thermometer trying to read temps across an external boundary, while you're essentially making a direct measurement using the internal temp sensor. We'd need to use the same method on both the '02 and CRD before we could make an apples-to-apples comparison. The non-contact thermometer I'm using is a small unit made by Actron, $30 at Northern Tool.

Some other temps I checked just for the heck of it - air temp out of dash vent with full heat and fan speed 2 - 155 F, oil filter both attempts - 165 F, coolant surge tank - 155 F, upper radiator hose - 125 F (rubber acting as insulation/poor conductor?), delta T between intercooler inlet and outlet hoses - 10 F at idle.

Jeger · **Posted:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:55 pm

I wonder when suncoast is going to speak up in here....I know they have been watching

offroadsubaru · **Posted:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:32 pm

I'm eagerly awaiting the first real-world report of a Suncoaster converter install.

Yeah -- I am working on convincing my dad that it's the correct thing to do on his CRD. He's 70% or so there.

CATCRD · **Posted:** Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:56 pm

I'm stoked about the suncoast kit too.

I tried the brakestand technique again to get an estimate of the stock stall speed, and each of three tries resulted in the rear tires breaking loose and going sideways between 1800 and 2000 rpm.

...edit for spelling

retmil46 · **Posted:** Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:49 am

Patience, my friends.

If Ron's original timeline was right, they've only had their hands on a test vehicle for, at the most, 10 days by now. The gentleman from KY was supposed to deliver his CRD to them back at the first of the month. I'd rather wait a little while longer and have it done right, than have it done quickly. Also, from the sound of things they're going to be checking out the whole tranny setup, not just the TC. That's going to take a little time.

tomasnc · **Posted:** Sat Feb 10, 2007 7:17 am

Very interesting post guys.

Fast forward to the point were a SunCoast converter has been installed. The mechanical stuff has been taking care of.... how do we go about correcting the the ECM data back to the "good-ole days". My power is off enough that I don't spin the wheels even on wet pavement.[/i]

If this improvement is made before the warranty period what issues will this cause?

Thanks

Tom

DnA Diesel · **Posted:** Sun Feb 11, 2007 7:21 pm

Has anybody here contacted ATS? Over on JeepForums, there is someone reporting having purchased ATS TC with great results...

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3289189&postcount=28

Duey

Aftermarket CRD TC/Tranny/TCM Info

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