I bought a new alternator to install myself. I ended up having to take off nearly the whole front of the G. In the process I poked a hole in the radiator.
I cleaned it up really well and soldered the hole as best I could. To my surprise it held up and didn't leak.
A week or so later heading to work I playfully floored it as I do from time to time. I enjoy the 300hp engine.
When I got to work I noticed it was leaking again. I drove it home no issues no overheating.
I drained the coolant and vacuumed the refrigerant properly and took the radiator back off to try and re solder. I put everything back on and drove it a while to test it out. No leak, no over heating.
Today when driving it on the highway, I noticed the car started emitting white smoke from the engine bay. I started to smell coolant burning and immediately pulled over. Coolant was pouring out of the bottom of the car, it was sprayed all over everything. When the tow truck arrived we needed to move the car a little to get it ready to go onto the tow truck.
It started fine and I put it into gear and gave it some throttle and the rpms went up but the car didn't move. Confused I gave it more throttle. It got to about 3,500 rpm before the car slowly started to roll. Almost in the same way a standard moves and sounds when you release the clutch. Only mines an automatic.
When it was on the tow truck I looked at the fluid that had came out. It was a antifreeze/transmission fluid mixture. Not the milkshake mixture like it gets when you have a blown gasket, but like it would look if you poured a puddle of coolant and then poured tranny fluid into it.

Wtf is going on with the car? Any ideas?

 

Wasn't aware there was any kind of link between the 2, my trans has a standalone cooler. I can see regular oil since there is the oil/coolant heat exchanger, but trans fluid mixing in there sounds weird to me.

 

Sounds like you never pressure tested the coolant system after the repair, also sounds like you developed a serious transmission fluid leak.

 

Joe did you put an aftermarket transmission fluid cooler on your car? The transmission cooler for my 08 Sedan is integrated in the radiator. I just found this out recently in a thread on this site. Apparently with the right circumstances a failure of the radiator (leak in certain area) can leach coolant into the transmission cooling lines. (not sure if there has to be a problem with the transmission cooling system also - one would think so) The subject matter of the thread was coolant that had leaked and gotten into the transmission destroying it.

I immediately began searching for separate transmission coolers (I prefer the plate/fin type) for my car. Apparently the OP has experienced a similar issue. Cleric knows about this issue also because he was trying to help the poster regarding his transmission replacement due to a radiator failure. Please enlighten me on your model year and transmission cooler. Thank you for your help. Larry

 

Can you tell me what you found out about your radiator, the damage to it and it's relationship to the transmission fluid that was mixed in? Thank you Larry

 

I have this same setup.
https://g35driver.com/forums/v36-eng...il-cooler.html
Unless it runs through the radiator as well as the external cooler......


Edit: I should note that mine doesn't look exactly the same, so it may very well be an aftermarket install by the previous owner.