The Camaro Club (UK)

looking for some advice regards autobox oil cooler

the standard one on my 91 camaro is part of the radiator and one of the pipes from the autobox to radiator has burst i plan on fitting an aftermarket alloy rad to help engine cooling very soon

my question is would i be ok to use an aftermarket oil cooler mounted in front of the water radiator as i need to make new pipes to the oil cooler now i thought i may aswell fit aftermarket oil cooler now aswell ready for the alloy rad getting fitted

can you guys recommend me an oil cooler to do the job and also what oil do these autoboxes use

Most alloy rads come with the auto cooler in it so will mount to standard lines, Any ATF fluid suitable for a GM box is fine.

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the water rad im fitting is not intended for the camaro i bought it new for another project some time ago but it is all but 5mm the same size but is not a trans cooler so seems a shame not to use it if i can

hence why im asking about aftermarket oil cooler would the likes of a large mocal cooler be ok for the transmision and just run new pipes to it as my original pipes are rotten anyway

sorry i should have said this in original post

I've just been down this particular avenue, although not entirely through choice.

I ended up with a Mocal oil cooler mounted in front of the rad, where my air con cooler (which is long since gone) was.

Couple of things to consider - ATF likes to operate in a specific temperature range. You don't want it too hot of course, but equally you don't want it too cool. Living in the radiator keeps it at a reasonable temperature, and the water coolant presumably does a reasonable job of transferring the heat out of it. I guess GM knew what they were doing with it when the designed the radiator, as a separate cooler would've been cheaper and easier to build.
My present concern with the current placement is the potential to overcool the fluid.
So give a lot of thought to the size of cooler.
If anything I'd suggest that mounting it behind the radiator would be a better choice.

i have read the same about after market oil coolers over cooling the atf and im considering fitting another standard rad and saving myself a load of hastle as the car has never over heated with the old standard rad and it has seen far better days

My ally rad sprung a tiny leak, and because the aluminium is so thin, it wasn't able to be repaired (apparently).
So it's been 'patched'.
To be honest, if the rad goes again I'm most probably going straight back an OEM radiator.
I'll probably see if I can repurpose the Mocal cooler for the engine oil if I do that, or just sell it on eBay.

I'd have saved something like £200 if I'd just gotten an OEM radiator, and a load of time.