Bill I am thinking about changing my trasmission cooler. I have been reading the posts about towing and it looks like I could use a larger cooler. I was just talking to the local transmission repairman and he thinks that the cooler should be right up close to the radiator to take advantage of the cooling fan. I have two coolers beside each other. One has larger hoses and and other has smaller hoses. The transmission shop thinks that one might be an engine oil cooler and the other a transmission cooler. He has a cooler in the box that is good for 20,000 BTU's but it has no brackets. I am going to pull the air conditioner condenser off and keep the two cooling fans. There is a switch that you can use to kick on the fans at the beginning of a long pull. Any suggestions would be helpful.

You could find out for sure what the coolers are by visually tracing the hoses. But your tranny guy is probably right about the big hose one being oil and the small hose one being tranny.

Now, why do you think you need a bigger tranny cooler? do you have a trans temp gage? If so, how hot does it get? Do you tow?

As to how big a cooler you need, I can only guess whether 20,000 BTU would be enough. I have a 20k in mine, and it is not enough, but my coach is heavier and the engine is a torque monster. My biggest heating problem is going back and forth into primitive campsites. Not much airflow and a lot of converter slippage. I would guess that 20K might be enough. Check http://www.longmfg.com/web/longweb framework.nsf/c75999cbafe6192785256bcf0077ad28/df6d58e066dcafcc05256c650003652a/$FILE/LNG013_Cat_Final.pdf

for a lot of really good info on coolers. The B&M stacked plate coolers are made by Long/Tru Cool. I am partial to Tru Cool in particular and stacked plate or fin and plate coolers in particular. The best coolers are the folded fin design like the Swedish Setrab. The earlier Corvairs had a folded fin cooler that was smaller but outperformed the later stacked plate coolers. Finned tube coolers are the least efficient.

My philosophy is to go a little larger on coolers, as the only penalty is the extra cost. If you go not large enough, as I did not, then you gotta buy a new one and do the installation again. And a bigger cooler will probably buy you some transmission life.

Eliminating the air conditioner condenser will take some heat load off the radiator, and might make the trans a little cooler, too.

Bill My temps are running 250 degrees when I'm am pulling up the long passes. I have a Honda Accord that we pull. I was just over to the transmission shop and he showed me a Hayden cooler that was rated at 24000 BTU. It is about the same size as the one that I have on there now. There is no barackets and they use the plastic clips that go through the fins of the radiator. I'm not really crazy about that. Dennis

Yup, that's hot. Here is a link to Hayden's site with their recommendations:

http://www.haydenauto.com/hc2000/e_catalog/pdf/contents.pdf Check pages 53 and 54.

I don't remember seeing Haydens rated by BTUs. Most cooler marketers give a gvw rating that is a little optimistic for me.

I share your lack of enthusiasm for the plastic mounting. I had to pull my radiator to repair a leak caused by the plastic wearing into a core tube.