Transmission Cooler Capacity Question

[campbellbennet]

Hello all,
I have a 1971 Ford F-250 Camper Special, 360ci C-6 tranny and it has a (I believe after-market installed) transmission cooler. The other weekend as I was crossing Mt Hood with a decently heavy load (and quite frankly, pushing it fairly hard) I started losing Tranny fluid out of the filler pipe whenever I would go around a left-hander (the filler is on the passenger side so a left-hander would slosh fluid that way). That made me wonder: I presume that adding an extra cooler naturally adds volume to the system thus, how does one go around checking the fluid level? Will checking the dip-stick "when hot, in neutral" give an accurate reading or is there some other way to measure and take into account the added capacity? Thanks in advance,

 

[Rocky_LC]

I would say the answer is “Yes” as long as the cooler is lower than the full level of the dipstick….

If it’s higher then all the fluid could drain into the trans, giving you an artificially high reading with the engine off. Bit if you check it with the engine running, in idle, your reading should be correct.

I would guess your trans was overfilled, and the expansion of the fluid caused some to spit out?

Do you have a temp gauge on your trans? I’ll bet it was hot (maybe too hot?) going over passes with a heavy towing load…