Cold again, replace the cooler not the transmission, great news
So when I got home last night I headed back outside to recover the garden from the latest blast of cold air. When I woke up this morning it was 39 freaking degrees outside. What makes it more aggravating is when I look at the forecast for the next few days I see lows that are dancing right along the edge of dangerous, meaning a slight mis-forecast could mean more landscape carnage if it isn’t covered. So at this point ti looks like I am just leaving everything bundled up until the weekend, f it.
So the other day I got a comment on one of my Tacoma repair videos, thanking me for making it and saying how it helped them replace their own valve cover gaskets. The commentator added that if I haven’t already done so, I should perform a transmission cooler bypass. I replied back to him for details.
Evidently there is pretty common problem with this generation of trucks where the transmission cooler, which is embedded inside of the main radiator fails/ruptures. If this occurs, the transmission fluid becomes contaminated with anti-freeze and will fail in short order. Replacing a transmission is a major and VERY expensive repair.
The proactive way to prevent this is to install an auxiliary transmission cooler, bypassing the internal trans cooler. When I saw I could buy a trans cooler kit off Amazon for $40 with free Prime shipping it was a no brainer. I’ll trade 40 bucks and a couple hours of driveway labor for a $1500+ transmission replacement down the road any day.
I found out today that my mom has not smoked a cigarette in two weeks. I had no idea she was going to be trying to stop (despite my decades long encouragement to do so), but I was thrilled to hear it. Mom said her primary reasons for doing so were financial, eliminating cigarettes from her budget is akin to giving herself a big fat raise. In only two weeks she has saved a big chunk of cash.
Although I welcome the positive financial impact it will have on our life I am even happier that it will be a positive influence on her health. Quitting smoking is not for wimps. I am quite proud of mom for taking it on.