icerunner

Doing some research on this issue here seems common for 99 and 00' years? as a tech stated that this might occur as much as in 10% of the trucks for these years... if so 1 in 10, that really sucks...

Does anyone know if the torque converter has a drain plug?

SoCalPaul

No, the torque converter is inside the transmission housing. If the power flush doesn't work, you will have to replace the converter.

Try draining some fluid from the cooler lines. If there is a lot of coolant, I'd expect to rebuild/replace the tranny & replace the converter.

If just ATF fluid comes out, power flushing should work.

Paul

1989toy4wd

I agree with paul, except on the rebuild part. I would really get a new or used tranny if it comes down to it, water isnt easy to get out of a tranny, trust me I know!!!

SoCalPaul

10% failure rate for a 8-10 year old vehicle? Not too bad. Just shows that regular replacement of the coolant may be cheap insurance as the coolant has corrosion inhibitors. Then again, it is 10 years old & s!!t happens.

One_96TR4

Before you go and rip out the tranny, I'd just change the radiator and do a power flush. That'll clear the torque converter and pump whatever is in the tranny out. I know a few ppl that have gone through this and have had no need for a new tranny. A few have put a 100K plus since the mishap. End of the dad S*&% happens and no point in throwing money out the window for no reason. Worst case you do have to change the tranny and you get a rebuild or used one.

DailyDrive

Why replace the rad? Take the trans lines from it, connect them up together. Plug the holes in the radiator where the trans lines used to be. Flush it at some shop. Refill with fresh coolant. When the summer comes around put in an external trans cooler for $50. That's the most sensible approach if your goal is not to throw money at things that ain't broken yet.

SoCalPaul

I think that was one of my first suggestions I'm all for saving $$$

Replace radiator, power flush tranny & see what happens.

Paul

Ed H.

First off you cannot make it worse so why not try the flush.
this is a pretty common with the ford 6.0l diesel radiators it happened to my step dads truck the radiator had to be replaced but the trans was fine and is still fine and it happened about 3 years ago and it gets alot of miles put on it. i would say flush it and replace the filter do the flush first so you dont run old fluid through a new filter, if it runs and drives after that its obviously not damaged to bad, and you saved serious cash and if its bad atleast you exhausted all your opportunities.

there is a pump in the transmission thats circulates fluid throughout the whole transmission the fluid does not just stay in the converter until you decide to put a new one in.

GSGALLANT

Last time I checked, the valve body was still downstream of the tranny filter screen, and Toyota engineers decided that any particles that could fit through the mesh of the screen would not cause any damage to the transmission. And since he is getting no fluid reading at all on the dipstick, it is probably safe to assume that the tranny is not "full" of coolant.

A tranny flush should be able to get rid of any minor coolant contamination that would be left in the tranny at this point... Yes, even in the torque converter and valve body!

My recommendation would be to drain the cooling system, flush out the tranny cooler portion of the rad to ensure that there is no ATF left in there to contaminate your cooling system, short circuit the tranny cooler connections on the rad with a piece of hose, do a good flush of your cooling system and refill it with fresh coolant, then install an aftermarket tranny cooler that is separate from your rad to prevent this from happening again.

Now for the transmission, my recommendation would be to drain what's left of the fluid mixture in the tranny pan (jack front of vehicle up while the plug is out to ensure that the drain plug is truly the lowest point in the pan to get as much old fluid as possible out) and refill it with fresh ATF, then flush through 6-10 quarts of fresh ATF (either by getting it done at a shop, or by doing an at home DIY flush... do a search, the procedure for that is posted on here lots.)

After the first flush, I would then drop the tranny pan, clean the inside of the pan and the magnets, take the filter screen off and clean it well, re-assemble everything, refill with fresh ATF, then flush through another 10-12 quarts and see how it works. My gut feel is that you'll be OK doing that and that a tranny replacement will not be necessary. Worse case is you'll be out $100 worth of fluid... big deal.

icerunner

You bring up a good point and I totally agree with you on some level and I in no way am I saying that "Toyota sucks" because they dont.
I was telling the tow truck driver how great my truck has been.

However, it is jumping the gun to automatically think I neglected my rig... it should be noted that I did infact flush out the coolant with "long life toyota red" 2 full times since I owned the truck. Now, I bought this truck used at 60K so I flushed it one time at 60 K and another time at about 115k... so I flushed the coolant about 1 time every 2.5 years since I owned the truck.
and the truck has 156,000 miles...now that is not that bad and probably in line with what the other guys are doing with their coolant maintanance.

I mentioned the 10% fiqure (which I'm not sure is really true) as guys with older rigs with alot of miles may wish to pull there original radiators out(or bypass tranny cooler) on these years before they fail possibly costing them thousands of dollars? (in trans work.)


Now dam me to all heck for doing this ....YET, in all fairness it should be noted that did lightly rinse the radiator the other day at the spray wash under low pressure from the gun (no trigger pulling) real light stuff...Not sure if I weakened something by doing that..?
If I did, that is on me, not my toyota radiator that made it to 156K miles..

icerunner

EVERYONE NO WORRIES, EVERY THING IS GREAT, I JUST POURED "STOP LEAK" IN THE TRANS AND MY TRUCK IS NOW FIXED!!

HAHA just kidding, I'll be pulling it into my home's garage today to start the surgery...

It seems like failures like this seem to occur at extreme temperatures, very cold and very hot.
as for the spray wash the other day...
The pressure I used shouldent have damaged anything...Yet I JUST did this the other day....just the other dam day...crap, some food for thought.

GSGALLANT

Toyota red recommended replacement frequency is 30000 miles... not 55000 miles like you waited the first time, or even 40000 like you are at now.

icerunner

Man,
great write up and i'll take the good advice .... yet truth be told , its either "Long life" coolant or its not long life coolant ...30K is certainly not "long life" for OEM Toyota Red Coolant...
isnt coolant degradation more a function of time rather than mileage? I'm thinking flushing all of the anti freeze 1 time every 30 months or so is pretty good for flushing long life coolant.

I thought the newer toyota Red was "Long Life" meaning 40K to 60K easy...well looks like I was wrong and the coolant turned very acidic on me...?

SWLABR

Hey - I had the same exact problem with my 2000 SR5. I noticed the mixture of coolant and ATF being forced out of the overflow. I drove it about two miles back to home and parked it for the night. Next morning, I drove it to the mechanic, about a mile - tranny slipped the whole way. Needed a new radiator, hoses, cooling system flush, tranny flush, etc. The mechanic wasn't sure if the tranny would be functional after all the work was done but, i got lucky and the tranny works fine. It's been driven about 1000 miles since and all's still well. If I open the radiator, there is still a trace of tranny fluid occassionally, but a couple of flushes should get rid of it. To be on the safe side, i'll probably have the tranny flushed one more time now that i've driven it for a while. I wouldn't be so quick to bury your tranny just yet....

Oh yeah - it set me back $900 but I guess it could have been worse.

GSGALLANT

Toyota Red is not the newest Toyota coolant. Yes, coolant degradation is a function of time but also mileage... like all the other fluids in vehicles. Toyota red is good for 30000 miles/24 months. Toyota now has a super long life pink coolant that is good for 100000 miles/120 months for the vehicle's first replacement, then every 50000 miles/60 months after that.

hector200sx

so if a person was to bypass the internal trans cooler what external cooler would you recommend one of the big ones with the fan??

mt_goat

Others that have had the same problem:

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/r...-fluid-116812/

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...tranny-143800/

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/9...-trans-117503/

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/t...-burst-126886/

Bypassing the ATF cooler:

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/b...cooler-126953/

GSGALLANT

You don't need one with a fan, as long as you mount it somewhere that will give you good airflow (such as right in front of the radiator). Hayden coolers seem to be popular among the Yotatech crowd. If you do a search on here for tranny cooler, there are tons of posts and writeups.

EDIT: Bah... mt_goat is too quick for me.

mt_goat

If you do any 4wheeling in the mountains you'll need forced air (some kind of fan). There isn't enough natural air flow when going slow up mountains. That's the only time I've seen my ATF get a little hot in 2 years and that was with a fan.

icerunner

Hey guys,
I'm going back and forth on what to do here, Seems like the bare minimum is to bypass the trans cooler lines to a loop and then flush the the living crap out of the Trans and the cooling system like a crazy SOB and then come summer time I would install a quality Hayden cooler...

Yet isn't "water cooling" (in the radiator) much more effective at removing heat than a "air cooling" setup via external Trans cooler?

Im thinking I may just replace the radiatior while Im at it however $550.00 OEM price for a new radiator feels steep for something that may leak internally again.

Aftermarket radiators are much less expensive yet not sure if the quality would be up to snuff.
Any ideas on a good quality brand Aftermarket Radiator?
Ever here of "Stillen radiators" ?