Yeah, I'll just back it up... Why does it feel like you've got a clutch hun...?

One nice night a selection of our friends and ourselves partook in a cruise a couple hundred k's from home and back. Everything as per normal... Kinda!

So we stopped, hung out a little and then got in the cars to leave again, although for some reason my car pretended to have a clutch (in reverse)! We made it home uneventfully but my mind ticking over plus a call to my past superior Jason Robins (ex Murray Valley Automatics) collaborated to suss the issue out to be flogged out 'Bands' in the Auto.

Basically these 'Bands' are lined with a friction material that's primary job in conjunction with hydraulic valves is to stop a 'Drum' in the transmission in a few different ways to make the transmission provide drive to the rear wheels in a specific manner - eg: Forward/Backward.

So my issue was the friction material was ALL GONE! But, no reason to just change them and slap her back together. One week on the hoist at Colin Kendal's Wodonga Automatic Transmission centre with Jason working his magic on a Stronger, more responsive and more enjoyable transmission for the XR and we were back in buisness!

One issue the XR's have is with an item called a 'Heat Exchanger' which is a part of the cooling system, these crack and being attached to the automatic transmission which uses oil to operate, it begins to fill the transmission with coolant which causes alot of issues within the transmission.

The simple fix for these issues is to block off the heat exchanger and run a stand alone automatic transmission oil cooler which is basically the same as a radiator. Oil goes through it and air flows across the fins of the PWR cooler to dissipate heat from the system as per the previous cooling set-up.

For mine I removed the fog lights which don't get used as it is never foggy enough to warrant the use of them and are generally the first thing to be broken on highway trips. So with the fog lights removed and a bracket fabricated to suit the front end of my car we mounted the cooler in the front right hand side wheel arch and cut 'gills' into the inner guard to allow the air to flow in the fog light hole on the bumper bar and through the cooler and out the wheel arch.

A slightly more involved process is to replace the radiator with the upgrade that can be provided by the team at Wodonga Automatic Transmissions which will be my next trick and will run in conjunction with the external cooler set-up that I currently run for enhanced cooling and protection. The only trouble as per normal is getting the money together to do such work.