Aftermarket Radiator

[Paula]

So, after about a month of driving around with a newly clean oil pickup screen, which has fixed both an oil pressure and an overheating issue, the car suddenly started flirting with overheating again. When I put lukewarm distilled water in, temp went back to normal, and would stay this way for about 30 miles. After about two weeks, I finally popped the hood at a time that I could SEE the leak which had sprung in the radiator.

So I got one on ebay for about 50 bucks. It is from an American company less than 50 miles from where I live, they took my VIN to verify before purchase that it really is the correct one for my vehicle, and the sucker is warrantied. But this new radiator (which arrived the NEXT day, woot! woot!) has the ports to attach the tranny cooler lines one above the other. My OEM one has them side by side. Is there a way to tell which line is flowing away from the tranny, since I can’t simply hook everything up in the exact same location?

Presumably the one flowing away from the tranny goes on the upper port, and the other one goes on the bottom…anyone experienced this with aftermarket radiators? Everything else is perfect!

Topic

[Richard Kirshy]

A few choices
Try looking for the service manual on your vehicle, that should show you the output and return lines

Or put each transmission line in a separate container.
Start the car for a few seconds ONLY.
See which bucket has fluid.
That will be your output from the transmission.

[Frank Heiser]

Really won’t make any difference which one goes where, shouldn’t effect cooling capability if you happen to get it backwards.

[Author]

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