Grumpy Bear

Transmission Thermostat Update Had a three day span of 84/89 F weather with lots of wind, 20/25 mph, gust to 35 mph and low humidity. Direction certainly makes a difference not just in load but in cooling. About 10 F warmer going with the wind that against. 164 F with the wind and 156 against it. 50 mph for most of these exercise as I am always mindful of the part wind plays with mileage. Trip length 100 miles. Distance to peak heat 25 miles. Motor ran 190/192 F and the radiator still has it's blind installed. 27 mpg. Temp did rise to 174 F at one point when stopped idling for about 5 minutes. This is well below the fan trigger temperatures. None of these temperatures is alarming but I can see where towing and faster speeds could make it a problem depending on your personal threshold temperature trigger you feel becomes an issue. The six cylinder certainly has a generous radiator that has been crippled by some fairly high thermostat regulation temperatures. Shift quality and timing is about as good as one could hope for. I will continue to monitor this over the summer season. So far this is a winner. Warms her up in the winter. Cools her down in the summer. There are two parts of the GM logic that baffles me a bit and that is the use of a thermostat with zero leakage. Most after market units bleed about 10% of the fluid through the cooler at all times. It's hard to trip a thermostat that isn't seeing traffic until the transmission body/thermostat body reaches the trigger point. The other is the highly restrictive nature of the valve itself. Even fully open is passes a fraction of the fluid to the cooler. That boys and girls is a head scratcher. Both of these issues are solvable with a Dremel tool and some thought. Last 5 tanks totaled 1726 miles / 60.27 gallons = 28.64 mpg. Pretty much 55 mph now.

Again that you for this information!!

Thank you for posting this.

Is that plug and play? Sounds interesting.

Sorry typo (No) I don't know what is different about these lights. My ignorance is astounding.

Ni before photo in your thread?

How to spend $1.45 a mile! $30,000 you agree to pay for your truck before TTL. Using the numbers for Illinois and my truck that truck just inflated to: $32,371 and you are paying cash. To earn this number clear, using my tax bracket you must earn: $46,000 but the pain won’t end there. Assuming 5 year ownership and the National average driving distance of 13,750 miles based on the NHTSA numbers and an estimated fuel cost of $2.75 per gallon and using the same principle that you pay taxes on money you earn the earnings required to fuel that truck for the estimated 68,750 miles is…..$15,800 of which $6,052 will be in some form of tax. State, Federal or Income bringing your total to: $61,800 but the pain won’t end there. You will change oil 13.75 times at a cost of $40 per in materials and assuming you change it yourself you spend another $855. $253 of which is in state sales and all income taxes bringing your total to: $62,655 but the pain won’t end there. You will spend another $575 on plates of which $170 will be income taxes on the money you spent on those plates which are pure tax. Your total is now: $63,230 but the pain won’t end there. According to Edmunds the five year cost of Insurance, maintenance and repairs will total $12,423 additional cost and you will pay $5,223 on the income to pay those bills bringing your cost to: $80,876 but the pain won’t end there. For five years Edmunds estimates the truck will devalue by $18,828 (trade price of top 3% of class) which is in essence pure tax bringing you total to: $99,704 The value of your truck after five year and 68K miles is: $11,172 You’ve paid $46,958 is taxes. $16,000 more than the strike price of the truck! Taxes equal 47% of the 5 year total! You’ve paid over 3X the strike price but your truck is only worth: 11% of what you have spent on it. 1) When you spend a dollar you don’t just pay state, county, city and Federal taxes on what you bought but you also pay Federal, State, Social Security and Medicare taxes on the money you are paying that debt with. The debt payment is AFTER income taxes. 2) Depreciation is not the same thing a trade value and cannot be used in calculation of ‘cost of ownership’. I used best case Edmund’s values in this example which you will nearly never achieve. 3) The example used will be in proportion to the strike price with an adjustment for state registration fees and percentage based devaluation. As these are fairly fixed cost doubling the purchase price doubles the Income required. i.e. a $60K truck will lighten your wallet $180K/$200K in five years…give or take. 4) Miles per gallon cost is more than (Gallon * Price) / Miles unless you stole that money you paid all four income taxes on some amount to get the purchase price. I drive like Grandpa Jones because: 1.) When I do I use 35/40% less fuel than average. 2.) Tires last 140% past the warranty limit 3.) Brakes last 200/300% of national averages 4.) These three pay most of the taxes. I buy low mile used because…well…it cost money to spend money. Every dollar I don’t spend saves me three. Do the math but do it correctly. Really does it make sense to you to spend $3 for a $1 item that has the future value of a dime? That’s one paradigm, and the another would be…….

Booked the paint booth for May 8. Getting that lift gate painted. $600 says the estimate. Work is half the size of doors I've had done in this shop for $400 but the badging is stupid expensive. I wouldn't replace them but the wife's truck so the wife's wishes. Root cause is some imperfection in the factory metal prep during the original painting.

60,000 Mile Service 6 quarts Redline 5W20 and WIX filter. Zero consumption for this 5K interval. OLM showed 40% remaining. Check of all other fluids both level and condition. All good Belts. lights ditto. Add two 10 oz. cans of Techron (done each 5K) to this full up. Have a look see behind the throttle body. Dry as a bone. No more build up on the valves than a carbureted motor. Tires. These Bridgestone Duller tires are a 60,000 warranty tire and at this mileage I measure .224" +/- .001 for all four. Based on a .100" replacement target this set is heading for 85,000 miles of life. They were rotated and balanced as is my custom. Rotation each 5K balance each 10K and check of pressures every outing. 140% of warranty Brakes, slides etc. check and heading for over 100K+ service life. Trans cooler modification have been in effect for 3K miles. Eight fill ups. Ambient temperatures for this period have ranged 55 F to 75 F and the trans temperatures warm quickly to their terminal temperatures 130 / 140 F. As high as 155 in town traffic. I rating this one a winner but still under review. For these eight fills the fuel efficiency has been off the hook. 2700 miles / 96.97 gallons = 27.8 mpg. 337 miles per fill and an average 12.1 gallons per fill. Label says 26 gallon tank but the only time I got 26 gallons in it was a pump shut off that didn't trip and ran it on the ground. Normal fill is more like 25 gallons. I try not to run below 1/2 tank thus I have a self imposed less than 12.5 gallon fill target. While the wheels were off made some front strut measurements in lieu of pending spring change. More on that as it develops.

Enjoy. I did. http://www.engineprofessional.com/articles/EPQ415_12-20.pdf

29.85 MPG over a 303 mile road trip using 10.151 pumped gallons of 87 octane E10. Meter shows 9% ethanol content. 29.2 MPG by the Scan Gauge showing 10.4 gallons used. DIC showed 31.2 MPG. 8.8 cents per mile. I've had this Scan Gauge II for a long time and have both the fuel metering and odometer dialed in to always be pessimistic. I.E. the odometer is dead on and the fuel metering is set to record @ 2% fat so that I'm never taken by surprise. Whatever the Scan Gauge II is reading I'm getting a bit better. By design. 5.7 hour trip averaging 53 mph trip average speed with a cruse control regulated 55 mph. 61 mph peak shown on Scan Gauge II. Ramp speed merging. 62 F degree day. 65 F degree AIT. 142 F TFT, 192 F Oil Temp, 170 F water temp. 3 mph wind with gust to 5 mph from a direction of 135 degrees magnetic. 153 miles east and west. 150 miles north and south. Interstate travel I-39 and Toll I-88. Moderate traffic and only about 10 miles total in road construction. Only made two stops for puppy and I to stretch our legs and get a drink. Talk about road buzzzzzzzz. Northern Illinois doesn't get too many windless days, ever, and Pepper shows her appreciation for them when we get one. Good Girl. Windless, Warm and oh so steady. No hypermiling. Just being steady.

Ask yourself why GM, or any manufacture for that matter, would go to the expense and trouble of a new part/part# for something that is identical. And the answer is...they would not. There is something different about it and not being able to physically discern that difference means precious little. Money drives these people. They changed something. IMHO.

Four Seasons Chart. Fall Sept-Nov Winter Dec-Feb Spring March-May Summer June-August They way I've broke this down reflects the seasonal fuel changes within a week or two instead of the traditional solar based seasonal breaks. Most of the differences can be attributed to seasonal temperature and winds instead of fuel blend.

Were all replacement shocks McGaughey's for this kit? Sounds indeed like a length miss match.

Sissy is a recently widowed teenage mother of twin baby girls. Steve had a private contractors job in Iraq. He’s been interned for over year and money is tight. Sissy never finished school so she’s been taking classes at a local Junior College to acquire her GED and hope is, a degree as a paralegal. Her only living relative is a sister fifteen years her senior whose in poor health and on state aid who has taken on part time mother duties while Sissy makes a living on the night shift cleaning bathrooms, bed pans and the common areas of the smallish hospital slash county nursing home. Work that doesn’t require an education and pays to suit; takes classes during the day. She’s driving north in a dated Dodge Caravan on an old Federal Highway built in the days of Ike with concrete gutters that empty into culverts that empty into the many and sorted farm creeks that make up the headwaters of a small river that eventually runs into the Missouri just west of the bluffs. It’ rolling country and currently she’s rolling up a three percent grade of a mile in length that’s marked no passing for half its length. The speed limit is 55 mph but Sissy is doing 62 as she is late for the third time in as many days to pick up the girls. Millie, her sister has been unhappy about that. At the top of the rise is a farmhouse that is situated on a country corner “T” just the other side of that rise. Making a right turn into the southbound lane is Randy in his families newer Crown Victoria. Randy is in his early forties and a contract welder at the corn plant seven miles back. His wife and child are expecting him for dinner in under an hour at home. Meatloaf!! As he turns onto the highway he sees an elderly lady checking her farms mailbox. Their eyes meet and they exchange the friendly nod and wave common to country folk. The days grown long and so have the shadows. Edna is a mother of four. Grandmother of nine and great grandmother of two. Her husband of fifty years Earl, who is now mowing the well-manicured lawn of their families dairy farm sits on the tractor at the hills crest. Earl will turn the farm over to the boys in two months and he and Edna are moving to their dream home in the Rockies to start that perfect retired life they dreamed of. Behind Sissy and closing fast is Ben and his wife, Janet, in his work/fun truck. Ben is a business major who runs the family construction business his grandfather left his father and now belongs to him and their two month old boy he hopes one day. They are twenty minutes late for a dinner date with friends thirty miles further north and Ben is in a hurry delayed the last twenty minutes by the spring parade of farm equipment. He gauges his speed and distance. He’s presently doing 75 mph and a hundred feet past the start of the no passing zone Sissy just entered. He does not lack confidence the truck can clear the Caravan with room to spare before the crest if he just reacts and doesn’t break momentum. Pedal now on the mat, motor in a howl and a firm pull to the opposite lane. Momentum now pushing past the point of no return. Earl has just shut off the tractor in time to hear the raucous roar of a big GM V-8 and in his panic looks back at Edna waving and screaming, motioning her to the ditch. Randy sees Earl wild wave and instinctively places both feet on the brake and heads as far to the right as the guttered ditch will permit just in time to see the C-10 and the Caravan crest the hill side by side and fifty feet to impact. Ben’s eyes wide and Janet’s voice at full song he cranks the wheel hard right hoping Sissy has enough room. For six people time stops for a second, for many, their last second. Ben cleared neither the Caravan nor the Vicky catching Randy twenty percent head on sandwiched between two immovable objects. The interior space is growing smaller and smaller as Edna is collected into the grill of the Caravan. From Earls point of view it’s a cloud of red mist and twisting steel…… Sissy sister wonders what is taking her sister so long tonight. A month from now the courts will split the twins into foster care. Ben’s son fairs little better. Relatives take him in but the insurance will not cover his life expenses and education. A burden his Uncle will bear. Earl’s retirement becomes years of mental therapy funded by the farm which fails under the strain after two years and is sold for his expenses. Edna's coffin is buried empty close casket. Randy is the least damaged. Seat beat bruising and air bag rash. He will not have a peaceful night’s sleep the remainder of his life. There are real people with real lives with real stories behind every wheel and they all matter. There is no legal or moral justification for breaking laws meant to bring order and safety to us all and decide for all others which stories get told or whose life is important enough to live. That's one Paradigm. And the other would be........

I love statistics and only wish I was a Black Belt at it but "There can only be One"; Stephen Hawking. (too soon?) I actually keep about six different charts based on different time periods and against some modeling. This one, like the previous, is every tank plus a 12 point moving average. Normally you use multipoint values to dampen noise in an otherwise noisy environment. Literally it is too soon to peg this but it would appear the transmission cooling circuit modification has done the dampening for us. Actually pretty cool as it make reading them easier and results show sooner. We will watch this trend. Note what has happened to the blue line. Seasonally, this is the second cycle which will complete in August this year. I can pretty much peg November 1st to April 1st as inclusive of all data points that normally fall within 3 sigma to be below the central tendency and life time average of 26.4 mpg (to date) The bars, I've explained previously are 3 sigma plus and minus and what you may have noticed is that the individual data points obviously lean toward the area above the centerline. If your inquisitive as to why the reason is quite simple. I drive less between 11/1 and 5/1 as a matter of life habit. Evidently creating a asymmetric node. I could quite literally raise the center line by 10% or more by storing her in the winter. So to the fellow who asked if a 27 mpg lifetime average was possible....yea. Another note of interest, if to no one other than myself, is the Transmission Fluid Temperature Gauge now acts as somewhat of a 'hot wire anemometer' of sorts allowing to know for a certainty if the wind is with or against me. No Witchcraft here. A radiator is a fin fan exchanger whose terminal exchange rate for a give fluid delta is about 25 meters per second or roughly 56 mph. It's the basis of cooling design for iron cylinder motor cycles. Funny thing is that's is my personal preferred driving speed. For instance today the temperature was 35 F. Into the wind the TFT was low 120's and when at my back lower to mid 130's. Cross wind 127F with no more than 10 degrees off cross. I just need a base reading which I get entering the truck and keeping an eye on the ambient number. There is a good reason for the grill shutters hated by most without understanding. As there is with CAI system and dismissing the box out of hand. Whatever. I keep plugging along making progress and paying my own bills. Without stats you can own a truck it's full lifetime and not know much about it. Sad.

You may have noticed I've had 1/2 the grill covered all winter and it still isn't enough! It was right at freezing today when I left for the horizon. First time with the cooler modification from dead cold. Took 9 miles for the water to come to heat. The trans and oil were pretty close to stable in that same period of time. No comparison to the unmodified version though as it just doesn't get that warm. The Jet 170 radiator thermostat will modulate to a stead 168 F at 50 mph and 170 at 55 F. Below 50 mph it vacillates around 172 F +2F / - 4F.

I did not count on the crazy radiator efficiency of this truck. I have a measured 40 degree F spread hot to cold on the water side and what you read in the photo on the oil side. The photo is 3.5 hours into a 4 hour 200 mile trip today that ended at 28.0 mpg. Trip speed average was 48 mph with the highest speed driven 55 mph. Ambient air temperature peak was 52 F with a low of 48 F. 20 mph wind split equal against and assist. 25.9 mpg into it and 30.1 with it. Most of this trip is Interstate. Federal and State highway most of the rest and about 5% city. I can bump the trans temp to the low 140's on an on ramp or in town but it recovers quickly. Warmer temperatures will moderate the radiator efficiency. I just don't know how much yet. It shifts sweet.

Swapped transmission thermostats today at Deegan's. Pretty straight forward. Mine did not have the screw in clips for the lines but a 'crows foot' plate and it only goes on one way. A little grease was needed to reseat the lines. The single central unit attachment bolt was finger tight! Torque spec is 182 in/lb. The crows foot just nice and snug. It is in the 30's (F) here today and the truck was already warm from the 18 mile drive to the shop so I still haven't an idea how quickly it will warm up...but...peak temperature was a surprise even for 37F ambient. At 55 mph over hill and dale for a hour it ran between 125 and 130 F. An easy pass through the lower four gears got it to 141 F and then cooled right back down. That is colder than I thought it would go by quite a bit. Don't expect this on yours unless your running the same 170 F coolant thermostat. Oil peaked at 188 F on the hot side. It's pretty close to warmer weather so I'm going to take a wait and see if this will be enough on hot days and I'm sure it will be but.... This is still warm enough to trip the set points for the transmission and AFM. Everything works just fine. It ran cooler than that on 0 F days without a cooler. Seriously I had thought it would be over 160 F and I'd still like to see that temperature routinely. But that isn't going to happen with the factory unit in any configuration I can dream up. The factory unit in the open position still bypasses too much fluid around the cooler and restricts what does go to the cooler. Aftermarket units have a built in 10% or so bleed in the closed position. I had anticipated that there might be need for a second stage cooler with it's own thermostat for addition cooling but as it looks now that thermostat may be better placed between the pump and cooler. Warm weather will make that choice. IF one is installed it will be a 160F unit. Time will tell. FYI the top line on the thermostat is the out and goes to the bottom of the radiator tank mounted cooler. From the top of the cooler to the bottom of the thermostat. Now you know.

Ah, the spring interior clean. I keep the seats covered and yet that quill like hair of my pet Ratty infest it like maggots. Now there's a picture to plant in a mind. Oh well, it's done now. Looks like new.

Yes. I bought a replacement thermostat and altered the internals. It will be swapped for the factory is Friday. There are two YouTube videos on this modification. They both work fine. I did the part shuffle. You have to assure that the window in the bobbin aligns with the port to get full flow. I'll have a spare if it isn't to my pleasure.

Haven't posted one of these in awhile. Red is a 24 tank moving average. Blue dots tank by tank. Yellow life time linear trend. Band bars are 3 standard deviations. This is a season and a half and shows summer winter longer term trending. I picked new markers for the transmission modification. Temp points picked with the coolant thermostat opens. Those points are 181F water 143F oil 98F Transmission fluid. These will be less ambient sensitive. Modification happens Friday morning.

It should help unless your just bad mouthing the product in good Troll fashion. It lets you know there are units out there that function perfectly. It gives proof that it isn't 'normal' that can be shared with your GM tech. What doesn't help is denial and kicking every possible fix offered to the curb off hand. I rarely listen to anything but the peace and quite in cab and I'm not deaf nor 'out of touch' with my trucks mechanicals. Being dismissive and rude wont get you any help either. That's a pretty good formula for getting yourself ignored when you ask for help. Come to think of it, you have it figured out so well I'm unsure why anyone would comment further.

Remember when I was driving around in M5 simulating the 4.10 gear? Looking for impact of fuel mileage the goal. I never came to a conclusion as the AFM isn't in play and I couldn't get an apples to apples look. Well Pepper has learned a new trick (idiot drivers light bulb turned on). Drive away from rest in M5. At any speed between roughly 45 and 55 and now on cruise control engage the tow mode. Now toggle up to M6. It will remain in gear 5 and enable the AFM. ********************************************************************************************************************* Took the thermal bypass valve apart and modified it swapping the preload spring and ‘pill’ positions and turning the pill end for end then reassembled. But before I install it I need some base line information so we go for a drive. 47 degree ambient. 50 degree under hood. From dead cold it took 3 miles to reach 160 degrees water temperature. Nearly 8 miles to reach 160 degrees oil temperature and 37 miles to reach 160 degrees transmission fluid temperature. (F) These numbers move allot with ambient temperature and engine load so I keep that in the back of my mind as I collect the data. There are multiple exchange mediums in this system. Air. A 55/45 water/glycol mixture and two different lubricants. Both of which in my case are POA/Ester based and as I use 5W20 in Pepper they are actually only about 2 cSt apart in viscosity at 212F. 9 cSt oil and 7 cSt Transmission fluid. Air and coolant exchange heat in the radiator core; an example of a fin fan exchanger. Then in each tank we exchange coolant temperature with lubricant temperature in what amounts to a tube in shell system. The motor oil is on the hot side tank (driver’s side) and the transmission is on the cold side (passenger side). As GM set this transmission exchanger system up it is bypassed until the transmission fluid temperature reaches 190 F. The radiator is regulating the hot side tank to 207 F and we get about a 20/22 degree reduction in sensible heat leaving the cold side at roughly 185 F in round numbers. That means the coolant is only 5 degrees colder than the transmission fluid. Still the fin fan part of this system is large enough to hold the line under normal operating conditions. There are two weakness with this plan. The transmission holds a bit over 12 quarts of fluid and it takes forever and a day to reach operating temperature in the winter and isn’t much of a hedge in the summer under more than moderate loads. That means in the winter the engine it being asked to rotate the transmission gears in what amounts to honey and in the summer it isn’t hard to push temperatures well past a sane operating temperature. First step was to lower the coolant temperature which we did by a nominal 35 degrees giving a cold side temperature of 150 F. Transmission fluid does not have the same thermal capacity of the coolant mixture so it can never get that cold. More like something along the 170 F range. That’s a pretty big lever during the summer. But this doesn’t help winter warm up at all. Thus the thermal bypass modification. As long as the transmission temperature is lower than the coolant temperature the trans temperature will be drawing heat from the system thus heating to operating temperatures more rapidly with no down side to summer conditions. Will this be enough? We’ll see.

May I ask why you wanted them upside down? I think I know but.....