Do any of you use one of those after market "water wetter" kind of things to help try to keep you tow vehicle cool while you are pulling the car? Do they work? Any specific recommendations?


Matt

 

hi matt.

glad to hear you are going to be competing at h-fest.

several things for towing:

be sure that the rad is flushed out and look in the filler to make sure the tubes inside look nice and clean; no oxidation showing. refill with 50/50 mix of coolant. should be good to go. I do this service about every 2 years in the trucks.

more important; be sure to change the auto tranny fluid and filter every 20-30k miles when towing. i was religious about this. also, use a very high quality tranny fluid. Chrysler 7176 fluid is generally considered to be the best by most of the domestic auto-tranny guys around here. it is expensive, but very good stuff. i use it in my trucks.... when doing the tranny service, be sure to wipe out the bottom pan, and clean off the magnet in the bottom. there will be some metal in there if you tow alot...

be sure that you have a sufficiently sized auto tranny cooler on the tow vehicle. overheating the tranny fluid will surely kill the tranny in short order.

i use mobil 1 synthetic engine oil in my tow vehicles, and change it frequently.

don't forget to change the rear end oil every 50k miles or so. use the correct fluid/traction agent if it a LSD (such as in my truck).

oh, and don't let the thing shift up and down a bunch. this may require towing in 3rd, not O/D, depending on the rear gear. on my Ford truck, the rear gear was a 3.55, so I never used O/D when towing with that one. with the newer Chevys, the rear gear is 4.10, so I almost always leave it in O/D, and it rarely shifts....

good luck.

todd

 

definitely what Todd said..and what i might add is use synthetic fluid in the tranny as well as the differential.........it makes a BIG difference in gas mileage as well as cooling......

 

Most importantly, NEVER try to tow with a Chrysler product.

Ummm... Oops.

 

As mentioned above, keeping the tranny cool is going to be more important than keeping the water cool when towing.

 

Make sure the Radiator is in GOOD condition. Let the vehicle warm up, then feel the radiator, it should be evenly heated ALL over. If it's paritially clogged, you'll feel cool areas. They'll usually clog from the bottom up, so having nice shiney tubes in the top doesn't mean too much. Anyway, get it warmed up and feel the radiator itself to check if it's good. Also, if it's a tow vehicle, get an external plate style transmission cooler, keeping the tranny fluid from burning is probably the biggest issue with a tow vehicle. The plate style trans coolers are more expensive, but they work alot better.