My experience of towing 4,700lb travel trailer, which now weighs closer to 5,000lbs… maybe.

If you have your predetermined number of threads showing after the trailer jack is raised you have a fully functional WDH. It doesn't matter how you arrived at it.

 

True, but the jack needs to be raised to get to that number and you were saying the only reason for raising the jack is to put less stress on the threads/nuts.

Some of the people that I’ve helped or have complained that the WDH is not efficient did not know about raising the tongue.

I’d bet you likely could not tighten to the 8th thread (or whatever the correct thread is) without the jack being raised.

If I remember correctly Anderson themselves forgot to mention about raising the jack in their own install video. However as referenced above it’s in the printed instructions.

 

Yup, you are correct. I need very little tension on the chains to accomplish a level ride without any porpoising therefore I can get to my predetermined exposed thread count by tightening the chains with out raising the jack. Other folks that have a tow vehicle that needs a lot of weight transferd to the front wheels need far more tension on the chains. This is especially true considering that some tests have determined that the Anderson is not as effective at transferring that weight as more conventional WDH's are.

An important point about the Anderson, since it came on the market it has been as controversial on the trailer forums as the owner/founder of Anderson is.

 

I just did a drive from Lincoln city OR to Redmond OR up through the cascade mountains (not towing from sea level to 4,200ft elevation ) and I woke my OBD fusion app half way up and was shocked to see my pan temp was 201’f and my torque converter was up at 227’f.

I was driving very tamely (wife and baby in the car) in D. Switched to S mode to control gears temps and all was fine after that. This has also happened on other big climbs before.

I’ve seen charts about oil breakdown etc but i would love to know what Toyota considers “High” for trans oil temps…

Anyone else get temps like this with normal driving through mountains?

 

I never thought to turn on the app when I wasn't towing. That does seem a little elevated for not towing. How many miles are on your truck and have to changed the tranny fluid?

 

40k miles and nope on the tranny fluid.

I’ve had it happen a few times before on long drives where the system is fully up to temp and then doing a big climb. Ultimately 201’f is only 15’f over when the thermostat opens. I feel like potentially 200’f at the pan is nothing to worry about.

Daily, how many tacos drive up 4kft elevation in D? Lots I’m sure, how many are having transmissions replaced? I certainly haven’t read about any/many on here. I’m thinking 200’f is well within specs.
If Toyota had concerns why did they remove the trans radiator mid 2020?

 

Good point. I just looked and it seems severe Trans drain and fill interval is 60k.

 

Sadly my current living situation doesn’t have a garage or a great place to do maintenance. I’m going to tackle the yearly oil change very soon on both of our vehicles. I need to do a thorough brake check too, unfortunately our driveway has a slight gradient to it…

I will do a transmission oil change pretty soon though, just for peace of mind. Although I may be pretty close on time interval alone. I need to figure out where I could do it though.

I also need to research and understand the trans oil change method, I know no dipstick is involved and pinning the thermostat is required…

 

I store my RV on a nearby farm and the gal that owns it is super nice... chatting with her yesterday and she's like just do it here, there's a concrete pad over there you can use. Just need to pick a day that isn't too hot or windy.

Super stoked I can service both our cars both the wife's Rav4 and my truck have done a total of 4k miles each in the last 13 months, quite the break since our little travels in 22/23.

Time to order some serviceables...

EDIT: through chatting with some peeps I'm kinda leaning towards the fact that the trans pan oil could probably get up to 220'f for a short while without worrying too much. I think it would be bloody difficult to get it up to that temp, but from now on I'm not going to stress about keeping it below 200'f.
I'll try and bottle up some of the trans oil to see what condition it's in, could even send it off to be analyzed.

 

Great idea of having the trans fluid analyzed. Blackstone does a great job with this.

 

I can’t find any transmission temp option on my fusion. How did you get all of that info? Thanks.

 

They are under Toyota, Lexus, Scion heading.
A/T oil temperature No.1 is the Pan temp and A/T oil temperature No.2 is as it comes out of the torque converter.

The temperature of the oil coming out of the torque converter will vary quite quickly and dramatically. If you’re pushing the truck hard expect to see temps upwards of 230’f at the TC and 200’f at the pan. The thermostat on the transmission opens at 186’f +\-.
Hope that helps…

 

It looks like I’ll have to pay for an upgrade for Toyota specific PID’s? Thanks for the quick response.

 

Ahh yes, I remember now, that is necessary….

 

dang. I look at my own tacoma and think it is living a country club lifestyle.

mine carries a kayak. well done OP. pretty sick trips.

 

Is the little truck that can…

 

Tacoma is the "Swiss Army Knike" of trucks.

 

I experience 200 routinely with normal driving- not towing. There are some that post about temps around 170 -but I basically never see that except on cold start. I wish it were lower. I’ve resigned myself to an earlier AT drain and fill - maybe 30K. Not as much room for external cooler on the 4G as was on the 3G. On My old 3G I added an extra external cooler and it helped - but not as much as I would have liked. 4G runs 10-20 degrees hotter than 3G (oil and AT fluid).

 

Does the 4G have a dedicated external cooler for the transmission or just use the coolant radiator like the >2020 3rd gens?
Have you actually had a monitor on to verify the 4G runs hotter?

The 3rd gen transmission operating temp is 186’f, this is when the thermostat opens to start cooling the oil. So posts talking about operating temps of 170’f are nonsense, unless they have the thermostat pinned open.