Well, after all this time I finally had a weekend to work on my Jeep and get the Rock Krawler HD Deep Sump Transmission Oil pan installed. I also hooked up the B&M auxiliary cooler as planned after draining the entire 8.8 quarts of old fluid using a fill & flush process that gets the old fluid out of the torque converter and other nefarious places. As noted, just dropping the old pan only gets about 4 quarts of old oil. This may be alright if you change tranny fluid frequently, but since my fluid was slightly burnt from being over-heated, I wanted to get all of it out.

You can really see the size difference of the Rock Krawler pan on the right versus the OEM pan on the left.

The deep sump pan combined with B&M auxiliary cooler added an additional 2.2 quarts to the system. Total capacity is now a whopping 11 quarts of tranny fluid. This extra capacity will greatly aid in the overall cooling efficiency of the transmission and, by the design, will help avoid any fluid starvation in the event of an extreme off-road angle one can find oneself in from time to time.

The new pan fits just behind the exhaust cross-over pipe and I had to remove it to lift the pan in place. The pipe is so close and gets so hot that I decided to wrap it with heat-reduction cloth and then sealed it with High-Temp Silicone paint. I also added heat-reflecting tape to the front and sides of the oil pan.

The swap-out, fluid flush and re-fill, which includes a new oil filter with extension tube to reach the bottom of the deeper pan, took about three hours - mainly because of the time to pull and prep the exhaust cross-over pipe.

Well, here it is already September, where did the Summer go? I have not been able to get either my Rock Krawler deep sump tranny pan, or tranny cooler installed yet. I did make an attempt at the tranny cooler but was sidetracked when I punctured a hole in the Air Conditioning condenser that sits in front of the radiator.

I did get the Gen2 kit from RIPPMODS installed and the jeep is running better than ever.

 I am also in the middle of my AEV premium 3.5 inch lift install. I have the front suspension completed (see pics below) and will be starting the rear suspension today.

 

Compare this view from the stock suspension of Jeep picture at top of this blog! Even though it is a 3.5 inch frame lift, the body is lifted by as much as 6 inches.

JK Automatic Transmission Overheat Problem

Well, as you owners of JKs may well know, the 42RLE auto-tranny has some overheat issues. I decided to track the oil temp using two Glow-Shift transmission oil senders and gauges. I installed one on each oil cooler line as close to the tranny as possible. I took a test run up Highway 79 to Palomar Mountain Road out of Pala (I-15).

The outside ambient air temp was a cool 63 degrees outside.

By the time I reached the Hw79/Palomar Mt. Rd (S. Grade Rd.) split, my tranny was a whopping 288 degrees! This picture of my gauges is proof positive...the one on the left (blue) is on the transmissions oil "in" line (post-stock cooler) and is reading 252 degrees; the one on the right (red) is on the tranny oil "out" line (pre-cooler), which is reading nearly 290 degrees...ouch!

Even though that's not burning the oil, so to speak, it is seriously shortening the oil-life down to about 15k miles from what should be 100,000 miles.

This issue has been posted on JeepForum.com and JK-Forum.com and the reasons for this are many, not the least of which is a poor design from the factory as to where the stock-transmission cooler is mounted inside the housing of the engine radiator.

I suspect that I have also compounded the problem with the Warn PowerPlant Winch sitting so high in front of the JK grill.

However, I have a solution to the problem which will be a two-pronged approach. I plan to do what most of you all do, and install an auxiliary transmission cooler in line with the stock cooler, but, as a secondary solution, I am swapping out the stock transmission oil pan and replacing it with the Rock Krawler Deep Sump oil-pan. The larger oil-pan will add about two-full quarts of oil capacity, aiding in cooling and all but eliminating oil pump starvation when inclined on those level 10 off-road hills and rocks! Here are some photos of the B&M Transmission cooler and Rock Krawler oil pan I will be installing...

Here are the web-site links for the items I will be installing in the near future:

B&M SuperCooler Part#70268:
http://www.bmracing.com/PRODUCTS/Automatic-Transmission-SuperCoolers/Automatic-Transmission-SuperCooler-rated-at-13-000-BTU-11x7-1-2x3-4

Rock Krawler Heavy Duty Deep Sump Tranny Pan:
http://www.rockkrawler.com/?r_intro=1
Note: The Tranny-Pan doubles as a skid-plate, eliminating the need for the stock skid plate which I will have to remove anyway as recommended by AEV when I install the 3.5 inch Premium Lift Kit.

P.S. I after the installations are complete, I will repeat my run up to Palomar Mt. and post my temp readings/results.

Ordered the AEV 3.5" Premium Lift Kit this weekend along with the Rear Differential housing skid plate. Should arrive in a week or so. Also ordered a Viper 3303 Car Alarm system; Performance Distributors 'Screaming Demon' Coil/LiveWire kit; and am considering the Ravelco Anti-Theft system.

Ordered the Gen2 kit today

Spoke with Ross at RIPPMODS and ordered the Gen2 Upgrade kit. Should arrive in a week or so. I will be posting the mod here...stay tuned (no pun intended).

My next major mod will be to (hopefully) install the GEN2 upgrade kit to my original (gen1) Supercharger. This will eliminate the methonol injection by using an intercooler and will also eliminate the "piggyback" black box magic that rides on top of the stock ECM program. The GEN2 uses a complete new re-programming of the ECM via the Diablo Predator programming tool. I'm hoping to make the change this summer along with some tranny cooling modifications which I will detail as well.