Did I cook my Trans?

SpThomass said:

I’ll start off by saying I have a 2006 GMC Yukon denali XL, 6.0L LQ4, with a 4L60e trans.

Yesterday I upgraded my stocktrans cooler to a Trucool performance trans cooler, all went well and I thought I was set to drive it the next day for an event. Anyways, earlier my husband and I were driving to a friends party, and from what I can recall the whole event was about 30 or so seconds. I was coming around a bend and noticed smoke coming from Smoke coming from the front of the car, then from behind the car once my husband noticed it as well. I was on a busy parkway and couldn’t get over immediately but eventually I got over to the side of the road. I didn’t accelerate anymore after I noticed the smoke, and all-in-all the trans temp never went about 175.

It’s a lot of text I know, but after I got the car settled and the smoke stopped I checked the trans dipstick and it was basically dry.

I guess my questions are;
Did I cook my transmission?
Could this cause other issues?
What should my next move be?

Any help or advice would be much appreciated, thanks.

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SpThomass said:

I’ll start off by saying I have a 2006 GMC Yukon denali XL, 6.0L LQ4, with a 4L60e trans.

Yesterday I upgraded my stocktrans cooler to a Trucool performance trans cooler, all went well and I thought I was set to drive it the next day for an event. Anyways, earlier my husband and I were driving to a friends party, and from what I can recall the whole event was about 30 or so seconds. I was coming around a bend and noticed smoke coming from Smoke coming from the front of the car, then from behind the car once my husband noticed it as well. I was on a busy parkway and couldn’t get over immediately but eventually I got over to the side of the road. I didn’t accelerate anymore after I noticed the smoke, and all-in-all the trans temp never went about 175.

It’s a lot of text I know, but after I got the car settled and the smoke stopped I checked the trans dipstick and it was basically dry.

I guess my questions are;
Did I cook my transmission?
Could this cause other issues?
What should my next move be?

Any help or advice would be much appreciated, thanks.

Click to expand...

Rocket Man said:

I had basically the same thing happen. On of the cooler lines popped out of the quick connect on the side of the trans. I was on the freeway and immediately exited. I had it towed home, refilled it, and it was fine.

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SnowDrifter said:

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what was smoking.

Fluid dripping onto exhaust but no clutch slip? Meh.

Smoke from clutch slip and frying the things into oblivion? You poor bastard.


Inspect the fluid from the trans. If it smells burnt and horrid, start saving, fill it up to see if it even functions. If it works, it's roulette on how long. If it's just low, consider yourself lucky. Barring a teardown, about the only thing you can do is fix the leak, fill it up, and function test it.

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