Archive → June, 2010
Sorento modifications
Since our Odyssey is no more, I had to make modifications to our newly-purchaed 2007 Kia Sorento to get it ready for towing.
I installed the same transmission cooler I had installed in the van. I hung it off the horn’s mount points:
This picture was taken standing on the driver’s side. The two breakers for the charge line and the brake controller are on the left:
More wiring. Charge line, brake line, and power line for brake controller. The white wire is the signal wire for the transmission temperature gauge:
Installed a hitch and 7-way wiring harness. The Sorento has a modular connector that plugs into an adapter that provides turn and brake signals. I had to splice into the drivers side rear light cluster to get a reverse line. The brake control and charge lines came down from the engine compartment and run along the bottom of the chassis:
This picture is taken looking up under the car. The front of the Sorento is to the left. The red thing right of center is the inline transmission fluid temperature sensor. It’s mounted on the supply hose from the transmission. From there, the fluid is routed to the bottom-most hose (the one with the reddish coating), which is the supply line for the radiator’s transmission cooler. From there, the fluid is given to the factory cooler (the next hose up, with the black clip). The third from the bottom is the return from the factory transmission cooler, and it’s routed to the upper right hose on the temperature bypass (the blue thing – this is needed so that we don’t turn the transmission fluid to molasses in the winter). The fluid then leaves the upper left of the bypass, goes to the new transmission cooler, and returns via the lower left. The lower right connector then returns to the transmission.
After attaching the two left connectors, I realized I could get the hoses on much farther if I first coated the barb with a bit of transmission fluid as a lubricant. Oh well, it seems to be OK even though they’re not pushed on all the way.
The temperature sensor’s ground wire is attached by nylon cable tie to the surface of the sensor. It’s the white wire that goes to the bottom of the frame. Note the second cable tie for strain relief.
Here’s the temperate gauge mounted on the dash:
The brake controller, mounted to the change tray:
It’s a ton of work! I hope we have this vehicle for a long time!