Hey gang I am looking for something to keep the trans oil warm when it is 50 below here in saskatchewan. Last winter my 4runner started with no trouble but the transmission was very thick and would take a while for it to warm up at times an hour with the truck idleing. Even though I was creful I still ate a transmission and just replaced it last month. I did the smart thing last year and used syn gear oil and that still didn't help. So I want to pick everyone brain and ask is there a trans heater that I can use that will not burn the gear lube. Thank gang
You are talking about a manual transmission, right?
If you swap in a radiator from an automatic truck that has a transmission cooler (heat exchanger) in the tank, you could rig a
12-volt gear pump to circulate the gear oil through it and back to the transmission through tees in the drain and fill plug holes.
When the radiator is hotter than the transmission, the water will warm the gear oil to the water temp (190-ish) and warm up the box a lot faster. And in the summer, the heat can go the other way.
Hunt around for an all-metal gear pump, the plastic body rubber impeller pumps I found while I was looking around at
formatting link
can't take enough heat. 180F rating isn't high enough, the gear oil and the radiator both get hotter than that. You don't need it to flow fast, a gallon or two per minute is plenty, but it needs to be rated for some serious head pressure to get cold gear oil moving. You need something along these lines:
formatting link
But stay with the synthetic gear oil, that should be thin enough so you don't have to wait before you start driving. When the electric pump starts, it'll be thin enough you dont pop a hose to the cooler. And change the rear end over to synthetic gear lube also, that oil needs to be liquid to work also.
But the water in the radiator is not 190...it will be very cold in that weather. Ther thermostat will open little if at all, and put very little hot engine water through the radiator.
Asher, I'd suggest using a much lighter viscosity gear oil in the winter. Just make it your plan to use syn 0W-30 engine oil, and very light gear oil in the transmission and differentials, and change back to heavier viscosities in the summer. Check with Toyota Canada, but maybe something like syn ATF in the manual transmission and syn 75W-80 gear oil in the differentials would work. You also might consider an electric oil pan heater stuck to the outside of your transmission.
I will tell you what I did when I lived in Montana in the mid 90?s and minus 40 was kinda the norm and colder yet at times. I did two things (I assume this is a automatic) I added about a quart of kerosene to tranny fluid (it will boil off in warmer months and even SYN tranny fluid does not work as well as ATF with kerosene added in extreme cold as I know first hand) and when it was extremely cold, I used a magnetic stick on heater on the pan of the tranny. (you could and kinda leave it on for a month or two in winter when the is not wet slop to hurt it.) Doing those two things (and double block heaters when extremely cold) I was able to drive the car in but a few minutes if need be at minus 40 and I was fully warmed up within 15 to 20 minutes top. ALso do block off your grill/radiator because at minus 50 and lot of heat is lost just from air flow past engine and tranny itself and they warm up quicker when blocked off too. Hope this helps, it worked for me and one more tip, I had a front wheel drive Toyota car out there too and it thrived in the extreme cold with a block heater. battery heater and a front bra blocking airflow under hood, everything warmed up nicely and quickly.
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.