@powershift : You are absolutely correct: That is one of those odd things on this truck. I have been thinking the same thing - that a robust intercooler, maybe one just dedicated to the transmission with its own electric motor/pump, would be an improvement. Right now, the transmission intercooler, interchange, or heat-sink is at the very bottom of the (already too big and complicated) cooling system with a bunch of pipes that wind around for no reason I have yet been able to divine. I frankly don't understand the engineering with this and feel the transmission cooling system could be better designed. Granted, the cooling system from the factory is supposed to both warm up the transmission fluid/oil at start as well as help cool it at temperature...and the transmission is just going to run hot in there by the nature of the thing (back to the comment about fluid changes, particularly
@bbyer 's recent note on a separate thread - I can't agree more) . But for the life of me, looking at the design drawings of the whole thing makes one wonder what was going on in the drafting room in Solihul (of course, not actually where the engineers work and no one is using pen-and-paper anymore)...
So yes - for those intrepid folks out there a larger / better cooling and pipe system for the transmission seems that it might help keep temperatures down and therefore (I assume) extend the life of the thing. Perhaps someone has tried this with an LR3 or LR4 already?
