Ok, where to start? Well first I have a 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix GXP. It has 90,000 miles on the clock and supposedly right before I bought the car the tranny was replaced with a new one (I don't really believe that, since I received no documents from the dealership). It ran fine and shifted ok and as I started to do my research on these fine cars I found that the cause for most tranny failures is heat. I noticed my tranny would get up into the 210 degree range on a nice hot Georgia summer day so I thought add a tranny cooler. I bought one of those do it yourselfer kits at the local auto parts store, got it home, tried to hook it up and found the cooler was too long and wouldn't fit my application. Scraped that idea. So I decided to end that idea and just wait till I can afford a nice TEP transmission cooler (stand alone version) later on.
Well while at the junkyard one day I noticed many of the Chevy Silverado's had a tranny cooler mounted to the front and got this crazy idea that if I modified my set up a little bit that I could make it work. So I picked one off a truck, walked over to a 2007 GTP and did my best impersonation of McGyver and it seemed it would work. Got home and tore down the front end of the car so I could do the install. Everything went on pretty easy, and I used the hose and clamps from the other cooler I bought to hook it up. Before anyone freaks out I did clean out the new cooler and lines before I installed them. I ran the return line from the radiator to the external cooler, external cooler to the return feed on the transmission.
Well while driving the car home I smelled transmission coolant and before I new it my car bled out most of the fluid. I figured I must have blew one of the new hoses I created. I looked at all my connections and everyone of them was holding just fine. What I had blown out was the lower line connected to the radiator. Not sure why it blew out of the quick connect but I got the line back in, grabbed a spare spring clamp and dumped 4 quarts of tranny fluid in the car. Checked the line often during the rest of my journey and it seemed ok. I bought a new lower disconnect fitting for the radiator, put it on the car, hooked up the quick connect and spring clamp, gave a tug on the line and she popped right out! After one more try getting the line to stay in I used the piece of black plastic that goes around the fitting and tugged on the line again, this time it stayed put. I cursed the engineers at GM and thought there has to be a better way!
I want to use some braided hose, and get rid of those quick disconnect with all new A/N fittings. Does anyone know what size fitting I need to use on the radiator? I really want to make this work with the factory application. I know the easy fix is just to get the TEP stand alone unit but I prefer to keep what I have.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I did see what size fittings I need for the tranny side of the hoses, just wanted to see what will work for the radiator.
