I figured I would post this question here since there are quite a few racers who hopefully will give me some insight.

I have a 1965 727 that was rebuilt and it has a 4 quart aluminum deep pan. The trans is going into my 64 Polara with a 3 core 22in radiator. The torque convertor is a PTC 3500 stall, and the rear gears are 3.55 and a 28 tall tire. The convertor was recommended to me by the trans builder. Since I plan on making some trips which are about 100 mi away, I did some preliminary math and I am around 3000 rpm at 65mph. So needless to say I dont want to cook my trans, and I want to add an additional cooler. I came across these 2 from Derale, and they are quite large (11 in across)and I am concerned that since I am blocking half the width of my radiator, could I run into engine overheat problems in town? Or is this over kill for a trans cooler, would I be ok in using either or? Or does someone have a different option of what I can use.

http://derale.com/products/fluid-coolers...elay-kit-detail

http://derale.com/products/fluid-coolers...ermostat-detail


I was at my local Napa today and they had their house brand of Dextron III/Mercon fluid on sale. Since I cant find plain Dextron anywhere, and I was told NOT to use synthetic fluid, is this ok to use?

Thanks for the input.

If your NOT planning on running the fluid through a stock type tranny heater in the radiator you should run a good trans. temp gauge so you can monitor the actual tranny fluid temps, it is real easy to keep the fluids to cool(under 160F) If you have that problem block the cooler off to make it get it to 160 to 240 F driving temps
As far as which tranny fluids to use go to Wal-Mart an buy their type F fluid and run that
BTW, do you know the correct way to adjust the shift cable on that push button trans? If not learn first that before driving the car and burning up the new parts

Thanks Cab, I'm going to have someone sit in the car and push the neutral button in. I'm going to take the pan off and replace the current cork rubber gasket with a Felpro rubberized one, with that said, I'll be able to see if the rooster comb is centered on the NS switch, and then I'll snug everything up, after going through the gears to make sure rooster comb correlates with the buttons on the dash. I was planning on running the fluid through the radiator first then into the cooler.

I guess my biggest concern if I take the car on the road and I'm not even locking up the TC I'm going to create a lot of heat, plus if I can keep the heat down, it might have a quasi cooling effect on the motor, if I'm only cooling 180 trans fluid rather than 230ish trans fluid is this good logic?

Thanks for the info.

Why not ask your builder which fluid to run. For some reason several people think a Mopar trans HAS to run type F and there are LOTS better fluids out there now

You shouldnt have any problems with the trans temp
with that cooler... move it over to the side and space
it off the radiator a couple of inches..I run a cooler
about the same size with out any radiator cooling, 5000
stall conv and OD with 4.10 gears.. at 75 mph I turn
2900 rpm and I have no issue with heat.. with the OD
and turning less rpm I have more slippage than you will
so dont worry about temp

My trans builder recommends Pennzoil fluid, but for whatever reason, no one around me stocks it. Mr. P, which cooler do you use for your car? I appreciate everyone's input here. Napa's fluid is made by Valvoline, so that is one reason why I am leaning towards it.

I almost forgot, In looking at the various coolers, I notice that the openings on some of the instructions show the inlet and outlets pointing up, and other instructions showing the mounting that allows the openings to be on the side. Is there a preferred method to mount, just thinking about drain back into the sump, or is this a non issue on how the openings are oriented on the car?

My cooler is a no name cooler.. found it at work but here is a pick of it.. it goes most of the way across the bottom of the
radiator but is only a tube style

Nice set up, and thanks for showing me the pic.

If you mount it sideways just put the return line
on the top.. that will keep any air moving back to
the pan(the return line is the one near the rear of
the trans)

I run a B&M honeycomb trans cooler I bought many years ago at Kragens and is it's just tied into the trans not the rad. In hot Vegas/Calif. summer heat it never sees above 180 but generally runs cold and is hard to get above 140-145 and it's mounted in the lower ft. valance behind the lic. plate.............

Mr. P thanks for the info on the routing of the lines, and thanks Thumper on where you mounted your cooler.