Smoke Screen

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72Dart360

72Dart360

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Happened to me again! Its been a couple of weeks since I took the Dart out for a ride, after driving 25 miles at 55mph I had a sweet smelling smoke screen behind me. Pulled over to a ballpark area and shut her down. Verified that yes its trans fluid leaking from the bellhousing area. After 10 minutes of cooling off, fired it up and no leaks. Drove the Dart back to the house with no issues. This happened to me before about 3 months ago, at about the same distance. The next day I went out for a ride over 60 miles with no issues.

Is the front seal worn out?
 
You didn't say if you replaced the lost fluid. Wrong dipstick measurement will get over fill which will leak down to the correct level. Just my guess.
 
Anyone have a picture of the vent hole and how to clean it. I read on a different thread that the vent could get clogged and cause fluid to pour out.
 
I had a converter crack at the snout where it drives the pump and it would leak like you described, if I drove it hard at 55+ mph it would look like a mosquito fogger, at slower speeds it wouldn't leak. If you end up changing the front seal, check the converter.
 
72Dart360 said:
Anyone have a picture of the vent hole and how to clean it. I read on a different thread that the vent could get clogged and cause fluid to pour out.
Click to expand...

The vent is near the top of the front pump so you will never access it with the trans installed.

Couple questions for you.

1. Are you running a high stall converter?

2. Do you have a auxiliary cooler installed?
 
3000 stall , aux cooler only. I'm going to check the fluid level today and my theory is that the transmission fluid is getting to hot and overflowing out the vent. One thing that was changed before this smoke screen started happening is I put on TTI headers. The trans lines are very very close to the header pipes. May have to reroute lines and cooler to the back of the car.
 
How big is your cooler? I.E. 4x6, 8x10, 10x12, etc.... My cooler lines run pretty close to one of the header tubes also and it doesn't cause an overheating issue. It's generally a small area where the tubes are close to the cooler lines so in most cases it's not a problem. I'd suspect your cooler is just too small or possibly located in a spot where it's not receiving proper air flow. If you use only an auxiliary cooler it can cause overheating problems in stop and go traffic cause there's not enough air flow past it.
 
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