Oil and transmission coolers

I am looking to install Mishimoto oil and transmission coolers on my 21 Expedition Max Limited. The oil cooler seems simple enough. Has anybody installed a front-mount trans cooler?

I mounted the Mishimoto transmission cooler - but never finished the tie-in - on my previous truck before it got totaled. Everything went on just fine.

Yea I'm looking for the best place to tie in. Did you have a plan? The info is a bit sparse on the topic.

check out this post...

wmayer343 said:

Yea I'm looking for the best place to tie in. Did you have a plan? The info is a bit sparse on the topic.

Click to expand...

So far this is my plan when I get back around to doing it again.

This is a pretty solid discussion on the topic of trans cooling here.

Im not sure if the 21 has a trans cooler in the radiator or not but guessing it does. The next question is do you want to bypass the in radiator cooler or not? If the answer is not, take the line out from the in radiator cooler and connect that to the line into the extra cooler, then plumb the line out from the auxilliary to the line that runs it back to the tranny. If you want to get really fancy you can plumb in an external tranny filter too.

callwill said:

I'm not sure if the 21 has a trans cooler in the radiator or not but guessing it does. The next question is do you want to bypass the in radiator cooler or not? If the answer is not, take the line out from the in radiator cooler and connect that to the line into the extra cooler, then plumb the line out from the auxiliary to the line that runs it back to the tranny. If you want to get really fancy you can plumb in an external tranny filter too.

Click to expand...

None of the 4th's have the transmission fluid running up to the front radiator, even if equipped with HD tow package. Coolant is plumbed back to the transmission where it is ran through a heat exchanger (HX). There is an electronic valve near the battery box that also controls the flow of coolant back to this HX to regulate temps, although I think is always open as I've always seen trans temp = ECT.

In the YouTube vid I linked in post #5, the person did just this where he plumbed an external cooler after the fluid makes a pass through the HX. It's not good to have the trans fluid completely cold and based on where he lives in a cold environment, a way to get fluid it warmed up may be a necessity. This method just involves a bit of modifying and plumbing to make work.

A quick search around the forums and other platforms you will find people that have also bypassed the HX altogether and run lines straight through cooler. Even then a thermostatic block or transmission cooler with an internal by-pass (such as a Hayden) is a good idea to get up to an operating temp.