I bid and won a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria several years ago. I am in the process of installing a new radiator and have several issues to address. The transmission is a water cooled Fordomatic, however the radiator on the car did not have the transmission cooler. The transmission cooler tubes were cut about 6-8 inches from the radiator. The previous owner had a flexible rubber tube connected to the inlet and outlet so that the transmission fluid was just circulating. I installed a small cooling condenser in front of the radiator and connected the transmission cooling inlet and outlet with rubber tubing. Sometime in the near future I want to add AC and have to remove the small condenser.

I have ordered a new radiator with transmission cooler (rerproduction of the original). I searched my shop manual for info on the transmission cooler lines and found nothing. I went to inlinetube.com and found 2 options for 1956 Ford transmission cooler lines. The first option is a two peice which is stainless steel tubing directly from the transmission to the radiator. The second option is a four peice with flex hoses in line ( I assume its two stanless tubes and two rubber tubes to connect at the radiator).

My first impression is to go with the 2 peice tube because of less chance of leaking. My question is which is better? What was the original setup?