Serious Prob - Transmission

Billabong089

Registered User
I noticed two puddles of red fluid, I'm assuming ATF, so anyway before I noticed that, I noticed my car was kinda hard to start, the battery sounded weak, didnt think much of it, drove to the store and back. 1hr later, same thing, went to the school thats around my house. Park and shut off the car, thats where I noticed this smoke coming from the ebrake handle and the climate control panel, it didnt smell like anything or at least a burning smell ( could it be possible it was ATF burning or something , theres no way my car got that hot though, it was a brief drive )..., I grabbed my fire extinguisher just incase, but nothing, the smoke went away, when I went to start my car it read 9volts and wouldnt start, battery was dead, I ran home to get the jumper cables and another car and I noticed two puddles of ATF fluid like I said before in my drive way,, and i'm like hmmmm , I got the car to start by jumping it.

Drove it home, keeping it under 1500rpms just incase and I'm going to call cottmann trans and have them check the fluid, but im worried about driving it up there and is there anyway i can check the fluid myself??? its a 5spd manual... Would low trans fluid or something cause the starter to act funny? Ahhh

I'm so frustrated with this car, on top of that, I need a new accumlator and I need to fix the exhaust which I screwed up by backin into a curb lol... ahhh
 
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anyone, I took the shifter panel off and you can see fluid residue all over the place and on the exhaust, looks it was sprayin or something.


I really wanna check the fluid level before I move that car an inch, I cant risk it.... PLEASE PLEASE tell me how to check a 5spd trans fluid level please ;)
 
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Well this is what I can tell you.

The only way to check the fluid on that tranny is to check it with your finger. I don't know a good way to tell exactly HOW low it is, though.

On the side of the tranny there are two "holes" for lack of a better word. A drain plug hole and a fill plug hole. With the tranny level, you remove the fill plug and the fluid should be up to the bottom of that hole. You check by putting your finger in there and see if you feel fluid. If not, you fill it....through that same hole. Pretty much a PITA to fill it, too, BTW.

As for your leak, I would GUESS that it's coming out your tailshaft on the transmission. That's where mine was leaking, anyway. Then it would get on the driveshaft and the driveshaft would spin the tranny fluid all over the place, including on the exhaust. It smokes a lot and smells like hell, but I don't think ATF is actually flamable.

Hope this helps.

Dale
 
well I think I got the trans on warrenty, 1yr on the transmission and 6months on the installition, would this be an installition issue or the tranny itself? I'm gonna go down to cottman transmission oday and see what they say, I'm gonna be like Its leaking and do you want me to drive it lol...


I'm gonna check the fluid.... the big question will this be costly ? or is the seal like cheap?
 
easy fix

If its leaking from the tail, it should be cheap for parts and not a lot of labor. You said the tranny is under warranty, I assume it was rebuilt. If so, the seal should be under warranty.
As for the hard starting issue, the tranny wont stop the engine from turning over, unless your clutch isnt disengaging all the way. Have you checked the fluid in the clutch reservior? Nine volts tells me theres a bad battery or short circuit somewhere. Good luck JJ
 
hmmm seems to me that you got the symptoms i got on my way to the beach... car started smoking above 50mph... came to a stop... lots of smoke... turn around... huge trail... i check underneath the car... and the transmission spit the fluid out... i checked the dipstick and it seemed it had turned the fluid into water... super clear... well after that the.. transmission slipped and it was gone... very gone... tranny dude took it away opened it and declared it dead. gears were all over the place. metals and bearings here and there... sad to see it go away for a day....got it rebuilt in 2 days and all is well... you should drop the TRANNY FLUID PAN... see if anything has broken inside...
 
ok well this isnt the smartest thing i've ever done but , i took it to Cottman trans they said there was something loose( the shifter stop thing that thing that is on the side of the shifter base) and they said come back tommorrow so we can make sure its not the tail seal or blah blah... so I'm like ok. well got home, and took out the center console and all that so I could see the drive shaft and all that.

Took it for a drive, and sure enough it startd to give me a mist shower of ATF, yum ;)


Its under warrenty but I got it from allstate Gear which is in Texas, so I called them and they are sending me a new seal... but now I gotta pay for installition lol... is it going to be a lot?

I guess this is how you do it, drop the exhaust, drop the differential and drop the drive shaft...? I wish I could fix it... :-/


could it be the yoke on the driveshaft, cottman was saying something about that... he was like the seal or the yoke... what would the yoke cost and all that, I ahve no idea what it is lol... would it be more likely the seal? I hope so since I already called the trans place and they are sending me a new one.
 
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drop the differential... wtf... why would u bother with that when u can just drop the gas tank... i find it easier...
 
Dale. what exactly was leaking out of the tailshaft ? was it the seal or something else?

Man I'm hoping its just the seal... but what else could it be? Are things like the slip yoke still available for this car and all that?
 
I really don't know. The headgaskets went on it, so it's still on the car and I'm going to part the car out. I think it was just the seal back there, though.

Dale
 
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