[DeTomaso] NPC: Automatic Trans Cooler

[Mike Thomas]

I have much more experience, mostly from participating in this forum for the
past 10 years, with manual transmissions rather than automatics.  I have a
'94 F250 4x4 with a factory installed trans cooler, which I picked up only a
couple of months ago and am going through to find things that need fixing.
When I was under the front of the truck today installing a set of fog lamps,
I noticed a trans fluid leak in one of the feed lines to the trans cooler,
which is mounted up with the radiator.  The leak was from one end of a short
piece of rubber tubing clamped to opposing ends of a break in the hard line.

I tried replacing the clamps with encapsulated versions, but I must have
pinched the rubber hose in the process, and thank goodness I only had a
short drive to the Home Depot and back before I realized I was spraying
trans fluid all over the front axle.  Clearly, I need to replace the 3"
piece of rubber tubing, and will have to replace what fluid I loose when I
pull the hose, but I have two questions:

*	Will this likely dump the entire trans worth of fluid, or only a
portion?  I expect that's as much a function of how high on the trans the
hardline is connected, which I can trace.
*	Will simply refilling the trans as needed from the top take care of
it, or is there some sort of bleeding process required here as with a
cooling system?

Thanks
Mike Thomas