Oil Leak from Transmission Pinhole
 

04 msm

i have oil leaking from the pinhole in the transmission.
possible culprits rear main seal, flywheel bolts, or front seal on transmission

im not quite sure which of those it could be realistically.
i just tore it all down to put in a new clutch and i saw the condition of the rear main seal and it wasnt great but it wasnt terrible. there was some oil leaking through but not much.

i definitely not the front seal of the transmission.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1358825408

the red arrow is where its leaking from.
http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/...ps10ee1685.png

it is possible that i didnt torque 1 flywheel bolt all the way, but it was still tight in place, just not up to torque. so that cannot really be a culprit either.

it leaked a lot of oil. it leaked about 3 qt's of oil while i was trying to crank it.

so i am kind of puzzled at this point.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1358825408
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1358825408

thats the mess it made...

I'm puzzled as to why you're puzzled.
Its as obvious as the oil leak on the floor.

You shoulda replaced the rear main

So, after this had taken place, which of these two things was completely devoid of oil?

1: Engine.
2: Transmission.


Hint: manual transmissions do not have pressurized lubrication systems. Engines do.


As an aside, there is no oil inside the crankshaft behind the flywheel bolts. You could have one bolt completely missing, and no oil would escape from the engine. At least, not until this condition caused the failure of the other bolts leading to the ejection of the flywheel. At that point, a lot of oil would leak out very rapidly.

the reason im puzzled is because how did the leak go from something very small to huge when i havnt driven the car. it drove to the spot its in and hasnt moved since.* forgot to say that.

do you realize how much flex/stress/vibration you cause to the connections bolting/unbolting the transmission?

if you had a small leak before, its only logical for it to get way worse after you've done that.

I think when you said in your thread "I'll just do xxxx and xxxx temporarily for the next month or so and then I'll re-do it right" it all went downhill.

So now you'll have to un-do everything and re-do it all properly, the 1st time around, like you should.

I'm not hating, just saying the obvious.

apparently not...and the only thing i plan to redo in a month on it are the studs and gaskets. gaskets only because im on my uncle schedule. studs weren't in the mail and i had 1 extra stud from my old miata to use in the meantime. i dont think your hating but either way, now that it has to go all the way apart again for something i didnt account for ill have the time to replace the studs and do something about my gasket situation.

Pedobear loves tearing down motors. You should ask him.

i just got in touch with him this week actually

:giggle: caught the edit

Not even 10 minutes and I feel the bus rolling over lol

wowmiata, you should be able to replace the seal by dropping the trans and popping the piece that holds it off. Be prepared to put some new RTV up there. You'll want a new little rubber strip that goes between the piece and the pan, too.

i am probably going to try and pull the engine with the transmission in place. putting it back in place with the car on jack stands wasnt much fun.

This is definitely the easy way.

I have never pulled the engine before so i dont really know what to expect. and i havnt really found a write up for how to pull them out together. but im figuring it out because i am not going to try and mess with trying to put the transmission back in place. that is not a fun job at all.

There's plenty of clearance to pull them out together with the radiator and coil packs removed. Load leveler (so you can control your angles) makes all the difference.

I was able to remove and install engine on my own in my garage just fine, without a load leveler even. Like stated above, definitely will need to remove radiator and coil packs, but it's pretty straight forward.... just disconnect anything that connects engine to rest of the car. Should be able to just look and trace stuff back inside the engine bay.

Don't forget to remove the shifter from inside the car, and there's a few connecting points and wires connected to the trans as well.