Mag-Hytec double deep transmission pan

Have you ever felt under your truck after a hard pull? Is the air underneath there nice and cool? Or is it HOT? Do you use hot or cold air to cool things?

For part of my engineering career I was an automatic transmission cooling engineer. I looked at using the pan for cooling. It doesn't work. When the truck is working hard, which is when you want the cooling, the air around the transmission is HOT. Don't give me the BS that cold air flows under the truck and it can't be hot there. I measured these temperatures. It is routinely over 200F around the trans pan. How much cooling will that do?

I've also looked at the flow inside the pan. A boundary layer exists in the fluid against the pan walls. This is a layer of stagnant fluid. It acts as an insulator, greatly slowing heat flow. So heat stays in the pan. Even if the heat got to the pan wall, the air outside it is 200F.

If you want to cool the transmission, you need a better aux trans cooler. I'm not familiar with the Dodge cooler, but I'll bet you could replace it with a better one and do a MUCH better job of cooling the transmission.

I have a 2004.5 5.9L Ram 4x4. I installed a Edge CTS Insight Monitor and have noticed that the trans temp runs a little higher than I am comfortable with when towing on grades, particularly in the heat of the summer in the Southern Arizona desert where I live. Therefore, I have been researching how best to lower trans towing temps. In that interest, I have done a lot of reading on the topic on the very active CumminsForum.com.

Those who have installed the larger deeper transmission pan have reported that it doesn't seem to lower trans temps that much. The fixes that are reported to have the greatest effect on lowering trans temps, and therefore I am considering are two:

1) Cleaning the thermostat in the aluminum trans cooler in front of the radiator. There is a long thread about it CLICK HERE

2) Removing the check ball in the cooler lines. DISCUSSION HERE

I have not tried either procedure yet, but am planning to soon do item #1, clean the trans cooler thermostat. Then I will run with it for awhile before I consider doing #2. I am hesitant to do procedure #2 as removing this check ball, though it does remove a trans fluid flow restriction, has the disadvantage of allowing the trans fluid in the torque converter to drain back after you shut down the engine. The disadvantage then is when you start the truck, you need to put it into neutral so that the torque converter will get filled back up with trans fluid -- in stock form, this won't happen in Park.

However, if performing procedure #1 doesn't lower my trans temps to my satisfaction, I will perform procedure #2. Personally, I have no plans for a larger trans pan, due to reports that helps very little.

Good luck! Whatever changes you make to lower trans temps, please report back here and let the rest of us know how much it lowered your trans temps.

The scan gauge is using the factory installed temperature sensor. You would need to call Dodge to find out it's location.

I measured my transmission temperature at the pressure sensor location on my 97 Bounder motorhome based on a Ford F-53 chassis and 4 speed auto, 460" engine. It was fine. Most trucks made after 2000 have much improved factory cooling compared to trucks from the 90's and before. Ford has made huge strides in improving transmission cooling, the factory coolers are double the size of before, and line sizes have gone way up in diameter, allowing twice the fluid flow as well.

You might not need the increased capacity, but like said above, buy what you want. . . It is handy to have a drain plug on the transmission pan, if you change it yourself. What I do is remove one line from the transmission cooler, then drain all the fluid into a bucket (run the engine about 2 minutes until it stops coming out) and then you can remove the pan with hardly any leaking down your arms, and onto the ground.

Normal fluid changes, you can just pump out the fluid (this also effectively empties the torque converter, while just dropping the drain plug will not) and replace it. But every 2-3 years, you need to remove the pan, clean the magnet inside the pan, and change that internal filter too.

Good luck!

Fred.

ib516 wrote:
I towed a 12k 5er in 100*F heat through the Utah mountains and never got mine too hot with a stock pan and cooler on my 2007 Megacab with the 48re Trans. I monitored my Temps digitally via a scangauge2. Buy what you want but it's not needed.

Are you measuring temps in the pan or at the output of the torque converter?

I towed a 12k 5er in 100*F heat through the Utah mountains and never got mine too hot with a stock pan and cooler on my 2007 Megacab with the 48re Trans. I monitored my Temps digitally via a scangauge2. Buy what you want but it's not needed.