Absolutely, water or radiator coolant is like RIP to transmissions. Standard transmissions don’t like water either, so those of you with standards may want to pay attention.
One of my friends with a Ford F-150 pickup and were chatting about his Ford Trucks’ automatic transmission the other day. It had water in it and was acting up. So I told him he was probably looking at sort of replacement transmission. Either a rebuilt transmission or a good used one. The truck had something like 150,000 miles on it anyway.
I received an email from him recently about, how could the water have entered his transmission and also about what I thought in terms of replacing his transmission. You see I know where Smitty lives. He lives in an area that could get some deep water in the culverts and we have had a lot of rain.
Basically, through good reasoning we determined the water entered the transmission through the vent tube in the transmission case. This, as opposed to the radiator going bad and coolant entering the transmission that way. He knew the truck has been in some deep water so we concluded it was from the recent rain.
With that in mind we spoke about how to prevent that from happening again after during the process of replacing the trucks transmission.
Here are my suggestions. Some transmissions have a small tube that is on the top of the case. In that instance, it is easy to attach the proper sized rubber hose over the tube and run it to the top of the inner fender or firewall. Don’t just wire tie it, take some time to make a bracket.
If the tube in the above paragraph is pressed into the transmission case. I would advise you to remove the tube ( as long as you can remove it without damaging it or the case) and put some Red Locktite in it so it won’t come out.
Some transmissions have a vent plug in the case. If this is so, then in many instances the plug can be removed and the hole it comes out of can be tapped and then you can install a nipple. I would be careful to make sure that you can tap it to the size of an established nipple size.
Generally speaking this will be a pipe threat, like a male 3/4” pipe tap. Then you can install a nipple with a male 3/8” pipe thread into the female hole you tapped threads into using some some Teflon tape, and then run a rubber hose to the firewall as in the above description.
The last way to do it will be described tomorrow because I want you come back with a fresh mind while my right shoulder gets a break for the day. Oh, BTW, the transmissions style or type does not matter, as in, a manual, standard or automatic transmission. Enjoy. GotTransmissions.com @ 866-320-1182.
