TRANNY OIL COOLER HOSE FAILURE - TRANNY ISSUE?

[taspez67]

Hi,
I had my auto tranny in a 1999 Land Rover diesel D2 rebuilt just over 12 months ago, but recently the tranny oil cooler hose on the passenger side blew and I lost drive, engine was still running, but it was as though I was in neutral. I coasted for about 200m before stopping. What are the chances the tranny is still ok? I was told the clutch packs are sensitive to oil loss and will have been damaged. If there has been some damage to the clutch packs, what should I expect when I fix the hose, fill the tranny with oil and try to drive?
As its only a $5k car, i have been told $3-4K to fix both hose and tranny, which is, in my mind, not really worth it, having already spent $2500 12 months ago on the tranny. My plan is to replace the hose, fill the tranny up with oil and see what happens.
Any advice greatly appreciated.

[JBM770]

I had this happen on my petrol D2 and it was because the quick release fitting wasnt pushed far enough onto the cooler pipe.
If the pipe is just loose remove the airbox so you have more room and make sure its fully seated on the cooler. I tapped it on with a stubby screwdriver and small hammer.
If the fitting is shredded you will have to replace the pipe. The early ones were multiple pipes and this was changed to one continuous pipe from the trans to the cooler.
James

ps Actually, the multiple pipe thing was for the ACE pipes so forget that.

[sierrafery]

............. My plan is to replace the hose, fill the tranny up with oil and see what happens.
Any advice greatly appreciated.

Seem like a good plan, then you can run a stall test on it to rule out a clutch pack issue

[Mr.Bear]

I had my hose fail in a very similar way, just coasted to a halt with no drive. The hose was renewed, oil replaced, she drove fine again. 9 months and a few tousand k's on no issues............fingers crossed.

[ramblingboy42]

summa , summa

enzed will replace it cheaply with one that will never let go again.

mine happened about 4 yrs and 100,000km ago.

[crash]

I have been told by an auto trans specialist that a sudden loss of fluid does not cause any major damage. Fill and proceed.

[Roberto]

This has happened to me several times. I recently posted the following in the thread on most important maintenace items.

"No one has mentioned the problem of the ATF hose parting from the front cooler. This has happened to me twice. On both occasions it couldn't have happened in a worse place.

The symptom is one minute you are cruising, and the next minute the engine is disconnected from the wheels. By this time almost all of your ATF will have ended up on the track or sprayed over what ever is behind you.

You will need to repair the connection. Access is difficult and requires removal of the air filter box. To effect a temporary repair you need to ditch the OEM connector and fit a heavy duty hose clamp.

If you brought spare ATF with you (you'll need several 1L bottles) refilling the tranny is very hard. Lying on your back under a hot car, hands covered in ATF you have to syphon it up into the small access hole in the gear box. Enjoy the smell of ATF burning on the exhaust pipe while you do this.

After this happened twice to me, I started to recognise the smell of burning ATF before loss of transmission. Crikey, I even smelled burning ATF in my dreams!

The solution has been to fit a P38 sump to the tranny. This has an ATF dip stick tube which is also a filler. Secondly, the dodgy OEM hose and connector has been replaced with a Pirtek hose and a clamp that won't part as soon as the vehicle is 1000kms from civilisation."

When it first happened, having obtained some ATF from an aboriginal community, I drove the vehicle several hundred kms into Alice Springs with the tranny temp light going on and off. Once the connection was properly fixed the gearbox lasted another 60,000 kms before making strange sounds which motivated me to replace it at around the 200,000 km mark.

So my advice would be not to worry too much, refill, replace the OEM hose and connector, and proceed.

[Roberto]

"As its only a $5k car"

Taspez, don't mare the mistake of valuing your Disco on the basis of its market value.

Think in terms of its replacement value. Apart from the fact that the D2 is irreplaceable with any currently available new vehicle, to get anything close in terms of comfort, ability and character you'd need to spend upwards of $30,000.

What you have spent on your gear gearbox should ensure many tens of thousands of enjoyable motoring.

By the way, your mechanic sounds pricey.

Bob

[steve_a]

We too had the hose on the passenger side give way on our last trip, happened about 30km south of Erldunda.

It's now clear that we had some issues that I thought were something else, but was actually this pipe sucking a bit of air in and causing the oil to be aerated.

- clutch slip : the aired oil just fails to keep pack pressure so you find it slips
- failing to lock the torque converter: again, this is the air in the oil, it's just reluctant to lock up fully.
- power steering leak : it wasn't I reckon, it was small amounts of oil transferring across and making it look like it was.

I didn't put the pieces together, even after doing a complete change and noting that the oil was foaming when I was trying to get the level. I thought the gearbox was just on the way out.

So, if you have some of these issues, get under and see if the oil is foaming, if so suspect that pipe.

OK, prevention, I did this by the side of the road, twice, so it's pretty easy, this is for a TD5 though, not sure about V8, never looked when I had one.
Take the radiator plastic cover off the top, then remove the viscous fan. You now have easy access to the swaged fitting. Give it a really good feel around for leaks, if you have any then obviously replacement is heavily advised.
Give it a good pull to try and separate it, the pipe is clamped to the block a bit lower down so you should be able to give it a good bit of grief, and DO. If it gives way then it's better in the garage than on the road.
If it feels loose or suspicious then go to pirtek or similar and get done.
The other option, and is what has lasted about 2000km now since early Jan, is to replace with a good hose clamp. It needs to be tight, so use a socket to tighten and don't be shy, I did it twice because I was too nice to it in NT.

I'd consider doing the same for the other side, but no one reports that failing, I will get around to checking it.

The other thing is changing to the P38 sump, note that the D1 V8 sump (and probably TDI) will fit, but the dipstick is the wrong side and will NOT go up the side.
I cut the dipstick down and then used some 16mm ID hose to create my own tube, U pull it gave me a dipstick that I am happyish with, but it's just not as nice as the P38 option from what I've seen.
The dipstick had been fitted when the hose came off again, and I'll tell you filling it the second time was a LOT more pleasant that at Erldunda roadhouse in the 40c heat.

[taspez67]

Thanks guys for all your advice, pipe had burst just up from the swaged fitting, i have it all loose, having a little challenge removing the pipe, nor sure whether to try pulling it forwards or backwards, sump is off the tranny, some fine grey stuff over the filter and a little fine residue in the sump, no chunks of metal or similar, so Im still optimistic, just need to get the old pipe off, a new one on, and see how we go.

Cheers
John