Thread: Combination AC condenser/transmission cooler.

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We should be getting the engine and transmission in the Valiant fairly soon so I’m looking at options for the cooling system. The car came with a real nice aluminum crossflow radiator, pretty much the biggest that will fit the car. It cooled the 508 without much trouble and I’m planning on re-using it with the HEMI. The down side is it doesn’t have a transmission cooler, and even if it did chances are it likely wouldn’t be sufficient.

The big killer on the 518 type transmissions (including the 46RH like I’m using) is heat, which is why they use 3/8” cooler lines and a bigger cooler instead of 5/16” lines and smaller cooler like most cars have. Although I could probably make room to stack a cooler and condenser in front of the radiator I’ve started exploring combination condenser/transmission cooler units.

I was wondering if anybody has any experience, recommendations or thoughts on the combination units.



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A lot of OEM's do it and it works (alright I guess) but I've had zero experience with it. I used a external cooler and then into built in radiator cooler cause I had been reading of folks having the oil to cool. But in a friends car we just made a loop of copper tube right alongside the trans and it was in & out right back into the trans and that T400 never cared how many holeshots he did. SO maybe it is because of the tranny and perhaps known issues / failures??? Or like some of the old adages about oil in general, some is better than none!, so heat is the known killer, remove it the best you can is all I know.

Yeah, the idea of the "cooler" in the radiator is actually to keep the tranny fluid closer to a constant temperature band, warming it in cold weather and cooling it under load, keeping it in the 180-210 range as I understand. I recall that Jack Cox/HenryRifle installed a small tranny "cooler" in his '34 Coupe that had a thermostatic valve to modulate the flow through the cooler, to not overcool the fluid.
Don't think I've ever seen an AC Condenser/Tranny Fluid combo heat exchanger before, but I don't see why it couldn't work, especially in your climate.
Edit - Looks like the RAM trucks have used one for several years!! https://www.ebay.com/itm/23342597165...85b9861cd5c549