Lil John SVT 27 Report post Posted June 9, 2016 Well I decide to start working on my 69 coupe after it been sitting for two years untouched. Ordered the disc brake kit and borgeson steering box fir starters. Point and coil was acting crazy so I installed a HEI distributor for now to get it running. Started the car and the radiator was low so added some water. Let the car get to temp and killed it. Checked the water it was low so I added more. Started it back up and the water came to the top of the radiator. I looked at and it was pink. So I stuck my finger in it to see what it was. Transmission fluid!!!! Killed the car and pulled the trans dipstick. Full of water. Apparently the trans cooler in the bottom of the radiator busted and that's where the water went to. Gonna pull the trans to fix the leaking front seal and refresh the trans. Thinking of going with a aftermarket trans cooler and plug the ones in the radiator. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MikeStang 247 Report post Posted June 9, 2016 Well that Blows. Just replace the Radiator with a Champion unit for a few hundred quid and call it good, its gonna take a pretty good size stand alone cooler to keep the trans cool without using the one in the radiator...may be cheaper getting the new rad and a smaller trans cooler Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
danno 128 Report post Posted June 9, 2016 My guess is you have already considered this, but water in the tranny can cause rust. Better get the tranny flushed asap. A lot of cars use a separate tranny cooling radiator. They are about 12 inches long and 3 inches high, and mount in front of the regular radiator. There is more cost involved as Mike mentioned, but I have considered doing the same thing. A separate radiator makes me feel a lot more comfortable knowing if it ever leaked, I would not have any chance of water in the tranny or tranny fluid in the rad. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ray1970 88 Report post Posted June 9, 2016 Not much help on this one.. I have found that working on an old car is more like a pendulum.. You are always back and forth Sometimes more back than forth. THATS the fun of it ????? 1 RPM reacted to this Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rsanter 152 Report post Posted June 10, 2016 My guess is you have already considered this, but water in the tranny can cause rust. Better get the tranny flushed asap. A lot of cars use a separate tranny cooling radiator. They are about 12 inches long and 3 inches high, and mount in front of the regular radiator. There is more cost involved as Mike mentioned, but I have considered doing the same thing. A separate radiator makes me feel a lot more comfortable knowing if it ever leaked, I would not have any chance of water in the tranny or tranny fluid in the rad. The problem is more than just rust. The water can start to disolve the bonding of the friction material to its backing. Often a trans that gets water in it is then on borrowed time even after being flushed out Bob Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lil John SVT 27 Report post Posted June 10, 2016 A c4 rebuild kit is cheap. So in going to pull it and have it rebuilt to make sure it's all good. The front seal was seeping anyways. And I'm looking into running a aftermarket trans cooler. Just another step in the building restoring process. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites