"Don Rey" <radon220@gmail.com> wrote:
: I installed a trans temp sensor on my outgoing fluid line (per the
: instructions on the kit). This would give you the most useful and
: real-time temp readings. I would think, if you put it through your
: pan, you get delayed and much cooler readings.
: In fact, with the bung-through-the-pan methond, your quickest temp
: increases will happen when your fan turns off, thermostat closes, or
: engine temps increase. You're seeing the effects of these on your
: trans fluid. With the sensor in the outgoing fluid line, you'll see
: the effects of these on your transmission! Plus, if you're burning it
: up, you'll know almost instantly.
This is one of those "quasi-religious" issues ;-) so I hesitate to
even bring it up, but this *is* a forum for intellectual discussion after
all so here goes... :-)
It has been my experience that the "generally accepted" spot to
put a tranny temp sender is in the pan. The reason for this is that
the line running to the tranny cooler will give you the temp of the
fluid immediately after it has exited the trans, usually right after
being manhandled by the torque converter. This makes the fluid very
hot, but this does *not* nescessarily mean that the tranny is that
hot. This is one of the main purposes of the fluid after all; to
get the heat out of there. Any heat which is in the fluid is heat
that is not able to be absorbed by the transmission. The fluid which is
in the pan is going to be much closer to the temp that your transmission
is actually running at. If you are monitoring the "hot line", you are
going to see spikes in the fluid level, depending on how you are driving.
Pulling a heavy load up a hill, it might not be unusual to see a reading
there over 300 degrees. This is not a long term situation for the fluid
though; its about to go through the tranny cooler and get mixed in the
pan with much cooler fluid, so the brief spike is much less harmful
to the fluid than an "oh crap!" glance at a tranny temp gauge reading
320 degrees might seem to indicate. :-)
A nice thing about installing the sender in the pan is that the
readings are very stable. A sender installed near the trans fluid
output is going to jump all over the place, and the information it
is giving you is not particularly helpful, since we don't usually
care what the trans fluid might have happened to spike to, we want to
know the average, overall temp of the trans. With the stable readings
you get from a sender in the pan, its easier to notice a trend like
the trans getting hotter and hotter.
That's not to say that its "wrong" to install a temp sender in
the hot line to the tranny cooler, you just need to adjust your
perspective a bit as to what constitutes a "hot" reading, and you
need to try to see past the fluctuations to determine what the trans
is doing. I prefer a sender in the pan because although it doesn't
have the immediate feedback of a sender in the hot line, its easier
to interpret the readings and I feel it gives a more accurate indication
of the overall transmission temperature.
As an aside, I'm not sure what you mean by saying that the action
of the fan or thermostat will affect your trans temp readings if you
put the sender in the pan - can you clarify that? I have a cluster of
digital gauges in my '70 Barracuda, three of which are water temp, oil
temp and tranny temp. I've never noticed any real relationship between
the engine temp and the tranny temp. The water is usually the first
thing to hit "operating temperature", but the tranny temp stays pretty
low until I actually start driving the car, and once it is up to temp,
it stays fairly constant, regardless of what the water temp happens
to be doing at the time.
--
-Jon-
.- Jon Steiger --- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com -.
| 67 Dodge Coronet, 70 Plymouth Barracuda, 76 Peugeot TSA |
| 78 Dodge B100, 90 Dodge Dakota Convertible, 92 Dodge Ram 4x4 |
| 96 Dodge Dakota, 96 Suzuki Intruder 1400, 96 Kolb FireFly |
| 99 Jeep Cherokee 4x4, 01 Dodge Ram 3500 CTD |
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