Dave928S

I'd be inclined to degrease and pressure wash this area to be a bit more certain where the leak(s) is/are coming from. It also makes it so much easier to work on when its clean.

Doug_B_928

Okay, will do the best I can. How difficult would it be to drop the trans to replace the seal on the top? Or, is this something that most would just leave?

Dave928S

Dropping the transmission would make getting it sealed up easy. As to whether you'd do that will be a value judgement based on how bad the top leak is, how bad a leak you can tolerate ... and how bad you have WYAIT disease.

I'm not really a good person to ask ... because I just tend to keep going until I end up with a bare shell.

Many would tolerate a manageable leak ... that can be cleaned occasionally won't coat everything in sight, drop oil on the ground, or deplete the level in the box too quickly.

Doug_B_928

Hmmm....I'm catching WYAIT disease.... If I have the half shafts out to do the o-rings and seals (and probably CV joints--another symptom of the disease), how difficult would it be on a scale of 1-10 for a non-mechanic to drop the transmission to change the gasket on the top?

Podguy

That looks ugly on the spine but can't you just rotate the clamp, get a new bolt and reclamp it. The shaft might snap some where down the road, but I suspect something more major would break first.

Doug_B_928

Below are pics of my pinch bolts. Sorry they are blurry, it's the best my camera would do. First one is the rear bolt before removal. No signs of rust. Second pic is the rear bolt. Looks good to me. Third pic is the front bolt. There were a couple of lines of scoring in the middle of the bolt, otherwise looked fine. Is this considered okay, especially given that the back one was fine?

Dave928S

Looks good ... the front one might have dragged a little on the edge of the groove in the shaft, but you didn't have damage to either, so just make sure the rear groove is lined up central to the bolt and install and tighten that bolt ... then do the front line up, install and tighten.

If you'd had significant movement the rear bolt would have dragged all the way out, it would have had fine red dust on it, and it would have looked like the bolt I showed with damage to the shank and the thread. Interestingly the paint marks can show no rotation, but the bolts can still be stretched and loose, so they don't really give any clue to what's going on with losing clamping force because of stretch.

Doug_B_928

Thanks, Dave. Should I order and install new bolts anyway?

Dave928S

Yes ... because they've probably stretched, and they're cheap insurance against expensive damage. I can't find the invoice, but they're cheap ... like a few bucks each. If you put in new ones you can torque them and know they'll hold, and all you have to do is re torque once in a while.

Doug_B_928

Okay, will do. Thank you.