A tough one....

[KenP]

Hope things with the wife get better. Much better.

BTW, no one has mentioned a head gasket. You could get mixing of the fluids there and underload the truck would certainly run poorly.

[ROX]

Hope your wife gets well soon, Racer.

Why would your truck do this twice? What causes this to happen?

[H2Finally]

Oh boy, definitely hope your wife feels better soon!

[Racer-X]

Originally Posted by H2 Rocks

Hope your wife gets well soon, Racer.

Why would your truck do this twice? What causes this to happen?

Well I don't know what causes it but there is a wall in the radiator that separates the coolant from the tranny fluid. They are both cooled in the same unit (when stock). That wall can rupture and apparently does more so with the H2.

I've had it happen twice now and I've seen it a couple times here. As Phil says GM has 1800 reported cases.

I talked to the dealer again after they got my truck. They are looking into plugging off the radiator section of the tranny cooler and running a separate one so this can't happen again. They did say it CAN be done.

As a side note - I watch my gauges when I wheel. Nothing ever got overly hot and the rig gave me no warning until it started acting up.

[H2 Ranger]

The internal cooler of the radiator serves a dual purpose. It heats up the transmission oil for cold areas such as Alaska and it also keeps the oil from overheating as well. Often the Engine runs hotter than a desirable transmission temp. So routing the transmission cooler thru the radiator in the current setup makes the trans temp go up more than desirable in a arid enviroment. I believe that you will get more life from a Cooler Transmission say about 175 degrees, and the transmission oil will not break down so fast. While I am not an expert on thermo dynamics, I still think a lot of transmissions are destroyed from improper operating temps. While in your case I would think it was a poorly mfrg radiator, but it has given you the opprotunity to try a remote cooler. If you decide to get it done that way make sure you get enough surface area for the cooling and have an end result of what you are looking for. Also hope you wife condition has improved.

[Racer-X]

Originally Posted by KenP

Hope things with the wife get better. Much better.

BTW, no one has mentioned a head gasket. You could get mixing of the fluids there and underload the truck would certainly run poorly.

A mixing of tranny fluid and coolant from a head gasket? Oil maybe.

I am curious why it was running badly though. It sure didn't feel like a tranny issue unless something was binding maybe.

Thanks Ken (and everyone) for the well wishes with wife. Still no real change. Tests that take longer to process should be done tomorrow at noon. Hope to know more then. She did have an otter pop awhile ago though. Thats a good thing right?

[H2 Ranger]

Originally Posted by PhilD

Water in the tranny is bad, it will not run real well and the engine will surge and all sorts of things as the tranny gets worse, and allows for less/more resistance due to the contaminated fluid.

Good point Phil, I would add that the mixing of both oil and water changes the surface tension of the liquids allowing air in the oil. Air is compressable and will haper smooth servo and spool valve operations. Mabee this condition was part of the issue as well.