I recently picked up an 01 se to use for parts. The 6 speed has some leakage from the union near the rear of the tranny. Not the section where the bell housing meets the trans, the next one back. Could this be as simple as loosening the two sections a bit, cleaning it up and rtv'ing it? Or do I have big problems?

The car had a front end collision, shifter seems to row through the gears ok.

 

Clean it up really good and verify location of leak.

Report back.

 

make sure it's not leaking from one of the sensor locations. I had to replace the sensor on the passenger's side when i got my 6-spd

 

I wiped it down when I pulled it out. I will be back home on Monday, I'll get a better location then. It really seemed to be coming from the seam in between the two sections.

 

If it is leaking there, then I believe you are f***ed. If it were the tail house you would be ok. You cant get the midsection separated without removing 6th gear. It requires a puller, but it's not that hard to get off and put back on. Then you could get a small amount of room to run a bead of silicone in the section that you describe. Honestly, since it is already out of the car, I'd pay to have someone do it. Probably $100 to $150.

 

Bump!

I have the same exact leak in the same exact spot. I've cleaned the area and I'm 99% sure it's leaking between the tail shaft housing and the middle housing where the two meet up.

Question: How do I fix this? Does the transmission fall apart if I pull that rear housing off? Any special tools to thing I need to know to fix this? To fix the leak I just need to get the housing off, clean it, RTV and reinstall. I just don't know what happens when I remove the bolts and start pulling the housing off.

 

<p>Here's a guide I put together on how to replace the tailshaft housing.</p>

 

Damn I searched and didn't find that, but I had "leak" in my description.

Very impressive, and thank you for posting that write up. That's good stuff!

Couple questions for you if you don't mind.

Since I only need to remove the housing to reseal it, would I need to remove the transmission from the car? Or would some of those parts inside slide back and fall off without the transmission tail end point up?

 

<p>I think that you could do it with the trans still in the car. But it wouldn't be easy. There were a lot of little fidgity things that were way easier with the trans out of the car instead of on my back with the car on jackstands.</p>

 

Ive been through a lot of 6 speeds. the OEM selant is garbage. at least half of the ones I have seen leak where the housing is bolted together that same spot.

I have not had any of them that I took apart and re-sealed with Prmatex "Right Stuff" leak.

FWIW the leak is usually not as bad as it seams. it will weep like that for years befor the fluid level drops noticably.

 

What I used (based on bobs recommendation)
No leaks so far.

 

I would have the trans out and then it is really easy to do. Remove the speedo gear, remove the cover on the tail hsg that the shfter sits in, remove the single bolt holding the control rod sleeve, remove the 8 bolts holding the tail hsg and it well come off after breaking the rtv loose. Or like Bob said you can do it without rmoving it. You can just clean the edges of the hsgs on the bottom with acetone, brk clean or whatever and spread some 'Right Stuff" across the seam say a 1/16" thick, they even make it in silver now. I'd have the trans at ambient air temp so the oil well be cool and less likely to seep until the rtv is cured.

 

As ghetto as that might be, given the alternatives I think I'll give that a shot! If it works, that would be way better than pulling this transmission.

 

So decided it won't hurt to try this. So I cleaned the area really well. The oil seems to be coming from the bottom area, but it's oily up both sides from the bottom by about 3 vertical inches up. So not sure if leaking up higher, or if oil was blown up.

After cleaning it all up, I noticed the bottom two bolts, the back side where the bolt threads into is open, and both had lots of debris stuck in the holes. This suggest oil is leaking between the housing surfaces to the bolts, and then through the threads. So I cleaned those out and put a little RTV inside those holes to seal that up just in case that's where the oil was leaking. Will now wait and see if it gets oily again, and if so, where.

It's only been sitting for 1 day so far and no driving, so nothing conclusive to report. Still if this fixes it without having to tear it down for repair that would be a victory in my book.

 

Rather than start a new thread, I figured it would be better to reanimate this one. I seem to have the exact same leak as patsmx5, but I've already got my transmission out of the car to replace the clutch anyway. I'm a little trepidatious about dismantling the tailhousing, however. Would it be worth it to try the ghetto fix mentioned above, or should I just suck it up and remove the housing and re-seal it properly, since it's already out of the car?

Also, I went to Aidan's tutorial, but the pictures and description are all wacked out, making it very difficult to connect the wisdom with the picture.

*edit*
I guess I should add that it's a VERY small leak; it hadn't even dripped, there was just oil on the joint before we drained the fluid, and we couldn't find any oil anywhere else above the joint. So I guess a third option would be to just ignore it for now.

 

God damn. They broke again?

Updated it again with the pictures and a direct link to the imgur album.

 

Thanks Aidan!

Also, I finally found the 6 speed FSM...most helpful. I think I'll just pull the housing off and re-seal it.