bigb

Hi all, just joined up and will be doing some work on the van in sig. So far I have had the drivers seat belt fail, water pump & starter fail, and the drivers mirror fell off. All this happened right after the warranty expired and no I am not hard on my van. But I am not here to complain, my van is my bread and butter as an electrician and I need to keep it on the road.

I installed a True Cool transmission cooler today, I'd like to have my tranny last as long as possible. It gets really hot here and we have some steep mountain grades as well.

So my questions are, does anyone know which tranny I have in my 05 1 ton dually with a 6 liter engine? Also, does it have a replaceable filter in the pan? I would like to do a tranny flush, are there any write ups here on the procedure?

I was also thinking a shift kit might help prolong the transmission's life, any thoughts on that?

By the way, Chevy wanted $600 for my drivers side mirror. I have the large two part swing away mirrors, and it fell off when I was folding it in. There is a pot metal cylinder inside with a rolled edge that a clip holds onto against a strong spring. The pot metal broke away and they said no parts were available except a whole mirror. When I took it apart I found a label inside from Velvac RV in Wisconsin, called them up and apparently it it was a common issue on 05 and earlier. They said the mirror was normally $360 but would send me one for $139 since mine was probably defective, altho it was out of warranty. Meanwhile I have fixed the old one with a bolt and washers.

Maybe this will help out anyone that has this happen.

bigb

Well it sure is quiet around here, guess there's not too much interest in vans! I decided to drop the pan tomorrow, change the filter, install a drain plug and put it back together. Maybe swap out another 6 qts down the road with the drain plug.

Here's the tranny cooler, I might paint it black but then I sorta like it showing back there.


Here's my Jegs Perma Cool fans:



After all, it gets pretty hot here:

vantasy1

Ah yes but as they always say it's a "dry heat." The tranny cooler was a very good idea,you have to take good care of your tranny. My seatbealts on my 95 G-20 Van have also had problems,one of them the latch broke and the other one is always getting twisted and hard to straighten out.

$600.00 for a drivers side mirror assembly? that is crazy,I once paid $90.00 to replace my drivers side sun visor from the dealer.

Even though my van is 15 yrs old,there are some issues related to how it was built,ex:the side door latch,weatherstripping around the doors,etc.

bigb

Thanks for the reply, I was getting lonely out there! I'm putting in a tranny temp gauge Saturday, I'm going to use the pressure port for the sender.

I ended up swapping out all the fluid as it was getting real dark, almost black. I pulled the pan, installed a new filter, installed a drain plug, put it back in and poured in 8 fresh quarts. Then I opened the "out" cooler line and started her up, pumped out 1 gallon, shut her down, refilled, repeat till I got clean fluid thru my clear tubing I had attached to the cooler "out" line. Then I hooked up the new cooler. She shifts real nice, before I had noticed an occasional very slight slide/bump when leaving a light during hot weather, hasn't happened at all since the changeout & cooler install.

Now I have discovered my radiator has a tiny leak down at the bottom where the side tank is pressed on. I called around to see if there is a bigger radiator available for these vans, but was told no. So I guess I'll pull it out and see if it can be fixed.

PapaNix 07 Xpress

BigB:

THANK YOU for the info you have posted here. I just picked up an 07 15 Passenger which I hope to keep in the family for many years to come.

If you ever get a chance, would you mind posting a pic and/or info on the drain plug you installed? Such as where you placed it etc...

Thank you, you are not alone in Van World!

bigb

Hey PapaNix, welcome! If I remember right I put the drain plug way in the back center on the bottom, just far enough from the edge to get away from the curved edge. I'll get a pic next time I'm under there. I chose that spot when I had the pan off because there was plenty of clearance for the big nut/bung that goes on the inside. The only thing I should have done was welded that bung to the pan, you have to use two wrenches to remove the plug to keep from rotating the bung. I'll do it at my next service interval.

I also put a tranny temp gauge in the dash, right under the Tow/Haul switch. I put the sending unit in the side of the tranny in a test port. My van is a 3500 Dually with a lot of weight in it, gotta watch that tranny.

Good luck with the 07, is it a 6.0? how many miles? Why don't you put up a pic on the pic sticky?