Failed transmission thermostat

[FiftyOne]

I noticed over the last few weeks the coolant level dropping ever so slightly but haven't thought much of it. Turns out I've got a leak from around the middle of the thermostat housing that supplies the transmission.  I believe these where standard fit to automatic FPV's (B) and taken off in the FG series all together. I've read that these have also been discontinued from ford which I'll look in to more tomorrow. 

 

Any suggestions as to a fix? Few options are;

find a spare

take it out and route it normally (like all the other zf boxes in the range) 

try and find a for like replacement (which I think may be difficult)

god forbid, chemiweld (no I'm not going down this road)

[Wilko16]

Just get rid of it

Re route the hoses

[k31th]

^^That'd be my plan of attack, if what you say about it being discontinued is true.

[Ralph Wiggum]

They are discontinued. Most dealers will give you a blank look if you ask for the part as it appears to be a single spec (FPV) one or two model year part.

 

I used two 3/4  to 5/8 (19 top 16mm) brass barbed 90's to replace the cooler

 

I'm sure you've probably seen my thread but below is the parts diagram from Ford.

 

 

 

 

 

there are some pic of how my setup ended up. NB: at the time I was running the PWR trans cooler.

[k31th]

Solid update and thread, Luke.

[Slash737]

Not just installed on fpv's. I had one in my bf2 xr6t fail. Thermostat was stuck internally and not routing the coolant to the heater so I had no heater.

For me it was the perfect opportunity to throw it and the heat exchanger in the bin and install the pwr heat exchanger and just used extra hose in its place.

[FiftyOne]

Cheers Ralph, appreciated. Yes, that's the thread I had seen

 

Gave the local dealer a call and the parts interpreter knew they did a few in the early days, as of 10-06 there was apparently a tech bulletin which was to remove it all together. The other option they floated was to get a heater tap from repco/bursons. 

I've already gone through the cooler replace. I'll do a bit more reading up on it and sleep on it before I decide what I'll do

Edited 03/05/16 08:50 AM by FiftyOne

[FiftyOne]

Hey Ralph, you wouldn't have the part #'s of the replacement kits handy would you? If they even supply them any more?

[FiftyOne]

So I grabbed a drill and an old set of injectors tonight, bored them out, installed them and it didn't fix my issue. So I went a bit deeper. 

 

Below are the tell tail signs of some sort of cooling system failure. Before even opening the system there was an unhealthy green sheen under everything rearward of my issue

 

Looking around I expected it to be a clamp on one of the lines to the trans cooler I had replaced over a year ago. Unfortunately not the case. I had trouble getting an image but I could see the highest point of the leak was around the black case of the heater tap

 

 

So I had to remove it all and its probably an easier job to drop the K frame than reach in with everything in position. But I wasn't doing that so I suffered.  The biggest issue is the bunny ear clips. they are in the most tucked away places & also with the ears facing the wrong way!  There was just physically no way I could get at them.  The gearbox side is simple enough with the steel quick clips just needing to be removed to pop them off.  Funny as before I saw exactly how it was I thought they might be the bigger issue.

One hose with a worm drive;

 

Quick couple off;

 

The other pipes I simply couldn't get at so the line from under the head thermostat I cut in half, and the one directly under the intake runners I smashed with a screwdriver

Hose down in here,  soooommmmmeewhere;

 

Ok so the offending part in question is a

 

Not only is there evidence where I bludgeoned it to death with a screw driver, you can see below the joins from where this was bound to fail;

 

 

 

And as you can see inside, looks just like any other thermostat you'd see around a workshop.  More to come on that later

 

 

So first plan was to see if it could be patched with glue, a plan I wasn't a fan of for a few reasons. That's now not an option.

Go and see if there is a "for like" replacement that I can McGyvor in with some barbs at repco/bursons. 

Ford kit/Ralph hack and get it together so I can just drive it again.  From what was a simple oil change, a few other minor issues have now made this a headache.

 

The thing that sh*ts me most about this is that someone at Ford made the case they NEEDED this part.  They couldn't buy a motorcraft or triton generic one to use from factory.  They spent a heap of money on tooling to make this ford part, in three pieces of plastic, which was now even more prone to fail, and they have all failed on the road which has led them to be discontinued. 

[k31th]

Ahh man... Bloody engineers getting their way.