Help! What comes next? Tranny fluid in radiator/vice versa

Hi,
I have a '97 Grand Caravan.
One day I went outside and saw tranny fluid in my driveway (so I didn't drive it), later when I checked my fluid levels to see what was up, I saw that there is tranny fluid in the radiator and the tranny fluid is milky pink in the transmission.
So I took out the old radiator, had it tested (it was bad) and replaced it myself. My question is, what comes next? I don't want to ruin the new radiator or do any more damage, I know I need to go in and have the whole transmission totally flushed, filter replaced, etc.
In what order do I need to do stuff? I haven't put in new radiator fluid yet--just bolted the new one in and haven't done anything else--I am just wanting to make sure whatever needs to get flushed out, gets out.

Can anyone help me out? Thanks! You should flush out the transmission asap as there's more bucks there and flush the daylights out of the cooling system right away too. The rubber parts, hoses, water pump seal don't like oil and it they get soft on you they all have to go but you might luck out if it hasn't been too long now,

T
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Tom Greenleaf - MetroWest, Boston
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This is awful!

I put in the radiator, brought it in to have the tranny power flushed to get all of the gunk out.....after radiator and flushing (they had to do it twice I guess b/c it was so thick and bad) and $350, I drove nearly 10 miles and the transmission completely locked up on me and I now have a large lawn ornament i guess.
The kicker is that I checked the radiator and it's all pink again (so is the tranny fluid) so did the radiator place lie to me when they told me they tested my old radiator and told me it was bad?


Any suggestions as to what I should do with it? I still have a loan on it, just put new tires on it, etc. Can I recoup anything? It's hard to suspect the new radiator is bad again so that suggests that the flushing out of these things wasn't good enough. They should have been carefully flushed till clear of each others fluids. Trans wouldn't like have coolant in it or vice versa but the ones I've known of were not fatal to the trans so far. Can you bring up this problem with the shop that did that part of the work for you? Worth asking about,

T
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Tom Greenleaf - MetroWest, Boston
http://acsource.net/acforum/index.php









They flushed it unitl it was clear...that's why I had to pay so much, it took them forever to get it done--I guess it was pretty bad.

I called and told them what happened and they said, oh, having the contaminated fluid in there must have wrecked it then, if you want we can come tow it to the shop and if you decide to rebuild the tranny, we won't charge you for the tow. (but the rebuild would cost 1500-2500$$$) Which I won't do because I still owe $1000 on it and just stuck $350 inot it, it's not worth that much!


Are there places that buy cars with new tires, good body parts, that run but have bad tranny's? I would trade it in on something, but we aren't buying anything to replace it at this time. There's a market for everything. You'll take a hit with a known tranny problem but it may be more cost effective than fixing it. Those vehicles have a bad history with transmissions according to my own trans guy who has done some three times on one with VERY high miles but didn't have the fluid problems you had.

You could check with some used car dealers about a cash value as is and they may buy it as they can get these things fixed at wholesale rates but you would only get bottom dollar for it. May be worth asking though,


T
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Tom Greenleaf - MetroWest, Boston
http://acsource.net/acforum/index.php










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