New one on me!

Derek@Vision Diesel · Jul 31, 2011

This is a buddy of mine and his story....

Had stage 1s installed in his 97 powerstroke, realized the transmission was now the weak link as it felt like it was wanting to slip and temperatures would routinely hit 200+ degrees, even up to 240 if you were driving over a half hour. Found him a BTS transmission and swapped in into the truck today, took us a few hours but we got it all squared away and good to go. Shifts awesome, pulls harder, everything is wonderful.... EXCEPT on his 20 mile drive home going freeway speed it hit 210* while ambient temp was 70*.

He has Banks gauges and the stock OBS trans cooler. I am also running the stock OBS trans cooler and dont have this issue, so im going to rule out the cooler. Do gauges just randomly start reading much hotter than they should!? I would think if it was faulty it would just die or not move.
Could be a plugged cooler, but it was just fully flushed 5k miles ago.

Any help!? Sorry for the long post.

CSIPSD · Jul 31, 2011

Strokeorcroak said:
This is a buddy of mine and his story....

Had stage 1s installed in his 97 powerstroke, realized the transmission was now the weak link as it felt like it was wanting to slip and temperatures would routinely hit 200+ degrees, even up to 240 if you were driving over a half hour. Found him a BTS transmission and swapped in into the truck today, took us a few hours but we got it all squared away and good to go. Shifts awesome, pulls harder, everything is wonderful.... EXCEPT on his 20 mile drive home going freeway speed it hit 210* while ambient temp was 70*.

He has Banks gauges and the stock OBS trans cooler. I am also running the stock OBS trans cooler and dont have this issue, so im going to rule out the cooler. Do gauges just randomly start reading much hotter than they should!? I would think if it was faulty it would just die or not move.
Could be a plugged cooler, but it was just fully flushed 5k miles ago.

Any help!? Sorry for the long post.

CRAP... I forgot to check on that sender for you... I'll go look right now.

I would install a larger cooler no matter...

That is really hot for empty and that air temps...

Derek@Vision Diesel · Jul 31, 2011

But is it really that hot Joe!? Personally i dont believe a BTS would run that hot, even with a small cooler. I know mine doesnt...

I have by-passed my cooler before and drove 35 miles to get home and didnt notice much of a raise in trans temps, at least it never hit 200 thats for sure.

Any way of testing a Banks gauge to see if its faulty!?

cfdeng7 · Jul 31, 2011

Was the transmission flush prior to the new trans? If so maybe you flushed all the junk into the cooler.

Derek@Vision Diesel · Jul 31, 2011

cfdeng7 said:
Was the transmission flush prior to the new trans? If so maybe you flushed all the junk into the cooler.

The old transmission is only 50k miles old. About 5k miles ago he decided it was time to change the oil and the filter, so he took it to a trans shop and had them flush the trans, cooler, and TC, then replace with nice new fluid. So that flush job has 5k miles on it. And the heating up problems really didnt start until a few weeks ago. But the weird part is it ran hot with the old trans, and is running hot with the BTS trans.

Gauge is my first though, cooler would be the only other option

CSIPSD · Jul 31, 2011

Strokeorcroak said:
The old transmission is only 50k miles old. About 5k miles ago he decided it was time to change the oil and the filter, so he took it to a trans shop and had them flush the trans, cooler, and TC, then replace with nice new fluid. So that flush job has 5k miles on it. And the heating up problems really didnt start until a few weeks ago. But the weird part is it ran hot with the old trans, and is running hot with the BTS trans.

Gauge is my first though, cooler would be the only other option

You can heat up a cup of water to a point and put a gauge in it to check the pressure, then dip the sender in it and see if they match.

I have that sender, shoot me your address again and I will drop it in the mail tomorrow if you need it.

cfdeng7 · Jul 31, 2011

Ok ya it doesn't seem like the cooler would plug up like that. Do you know if you even have flow through the cooling circuit? is it possible the pressure bypass failed not letting oil to the cooler

CSIPSD · Aug 1, 2011

Even without the cooler it should not be running that hot... BTS or otherwise.

If he were pulling, maybe, but empty at 70* ambiant... not a chance.

cfdeng7 · Aug 1, 2011

CSIPSD said:
Even without the cooler it should not be running that hot... BTS or otherwise.

If he were pulling, maybe, but empty at 70* ambiant... not a chance.

True. Well I can't think of why BOTH trannys are running that hot. Sounds like it could be a bad sender or gauge

Derek@Vision Diesel · Aug 1, 2011

CSIPSD said:
You can heat up a cup of water to a point and put a gauge in it to check the pressure, then dip the sender in it and see if they match.

I have that sender, shoot me your address again and I will drop it in the mail tomorrow if you need it.

Good idea with the hot water, we will try that.

If it was the bypass on the transmissions it wouldnt act the same with both transmissions. It has to be something that stays with the truck.

TARM · Aug 1, 2011

It can also be a crap cooler. Honestly I have seen few posts about brand new BTS running warm with anything smaller than a V10 cooler. I would get a 6.0 cooler or at min a v10 on there. Not sure your temps are really that hot or not but I have seen posts a few times about this kind of thing.

If you are in a bind I can dig around at my scrap yard and see if it has anymore I can pull. I got mine for 30 or 35.

Derek@Vision Diesel · Aug 1, 2011

I appreciate it Tarm, I believe we are going to order some coolers off of CaryT. Brian suggested them so we will try them out, they mount behind the bumper and are pretty long.

I have the stock cooler on my truck and it doesnt run anywhere near that warm

TARM · Aug 1, 2011

Yeh I am far from a trans expert but it does seem sporadic in who has heat and who doesn't

Cary is a good guy and will get you that stuff fast at a good price. He has been immense help to me a number of times in the past and I am sure will be in the future.

I think those coolers are very similar in capacity and cooler as V10 but just a better price compared to OEM so should work out very well.

Hope everything works out but ya know Brian will fix it if not.

Derek@Vision Diesel · Aug 1, 2011

Yeah im pretty certain its not transmission related, I believe he has a faulty gauge

00f3fiddy · Aug 1, 2011

Not sure where I read it or if it would cause higher temps. I Think I read that the sender not properly grounding to the trans will make the guage read incorrect. Did you by chance use teflon on it?

cfdeng7 · Aug 1, 2011

00f3fiddy said:
Not sure where I read it or if it would cause higher temps. I Think I read that the sender not properly grounding to the trans will make the guage read incorrect. Did you by chance use teflon on it?

Ya idk how the banks gauge works but gauges that need a ground through the threads will do weird stuff when they don't have a good ground

Derek@Vision Diesel · Aug 1, 2011

00f3fiddy said:
Not sure where I read it or if it would cause higher temps. I Think I read that the sender not properly grounding to the trans will make the guage read incorrect. Did you by chance use teflon on it?

No teflon, it acted the same on both transmissions

cfdeng7 said:
Ya idk how the banks gauge works but gauges that need a ground through the threads will do weird stuff when they don't have a good ground

We will check grounds!

TURTLE · Aug 1, 2011

Had this exact problem. Got an aftermarket cooler and never had a problem again. It can be the stock cooler....

Derek@Vision Diesel · Aug 1, 2011

TURTLE said:
Had this exact problem. Got an aftermarket cooler and never had a problem again. It can be the stock cooler....

Good to hear!!!

We are getting the new ones ordered ASAP!

BBottoms · Aug 1, 2011

Do you have access to AutoEnginuity or something that read live data? There is a transmission temperature reading the PCM picks up (at least there is on my 95). It only reads in volts and not degrees, but somewhere there is a conversion tool that shows what voltage=temperature. I've checked mine a couple times and the gauge is typically within 10-15 degrees of what the PCM is reading.