Trans cooler hard lines

What’s up yall…I’m making a front bumper and I’m looking to get rid of the front crossmember that the trans cooler hard lines are bolted to (pic included). My question is, is there a reason these part of the lines are hardlined? When I get rid of the crossmember, should I reroute these or just stuff them up a little and make new brackets? I don’t think they’ll have to move far for what I’m trying to do, but if I can, I was thinking of just making them soft hose all throughout. Thoughts?

 

The reason as far as I have been able to tell is for assembly efficiency. Some later models of LCs and T4Rs with similar/same transmission/cooler setups have a passive cooler (finned metal tube) where our slick hard lines are, similar to (maybe same part number) as the power steering coolers that some other Toyotas have. There are actually hard lines coming out of the trans, to sections of rubber, to those hard lines in front, to rubber again to go to the rad intercooler/trans cooler. Lots of transitions to leak, lots of hard lines to rust out.

When my hard lines popped the inevitable pinholes due to rust, I replaced the entire run from the trans to the (replacement) cooler with single piece hose. Nothing to rust, nothing to bend. If you dig in my build thread, you can find links to the posts.

You can get elbow fittings that will go into the Tcase and convert to AN, the trans takes M14x1.5 and I used AN-6 braided line.

Edit: here's the posts from my build - https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/new-england-b-s-thread.204874/page-9532#post-27726660 - they run from there to #190639 for the trans cooler stuff. I don't know if I called out the DEI heat shield I used on the hose starting at the elbow, but AN-6 line fit perfect and keeps the hose shielded until well past the cats.

 

I will definitely check your build out, I appreciate the write up! I agree there’s way more opportunities for leaks vs running one run of hose.

 

I cut off my crossmember and welded in a new one higher up to accommodate a higher clearance bumper build like what you're doing. I just used the play in the soft lines on either end to rotate the hard lines up out of harms way and secure them. All you have to be careful of is making sure you don't get the soft lines into the serpentine belt.

 

Okay nice yeah I think I can get away with doing the same thing. My plan is to have 2 tubes come down right where they are so they’d only have to move up maybe 2”. Thanks man!

 

I want to say I moved the crossmember up at least 3", so you should be fine

 

Sweet. Did you make new brackets to bolt them to?