Leaking Fluids

[buckethead]

Well two days after my boss got our parking lot re-sealed, I got in deep trouble. It seems my car was leaking all kinds of fluids on it (both red and brown... uh oh). He told me i have to park on the vacant lot next to our office untill i get it fixed. That really sucks because i'm broke. Fortunately, one of my coworker's boyfriend, tilo, is a mechanic. He offered to take a look at my car and tell me just what was wrong with it. So he put it on the lift and he tells me that "everywhere you have fluids in your car, it is leaking." Well he exaggerated a little, because it turns out it's just my transmission, motor oil, and power steering fluid.

 

My power steering fluid was leaking from some of the lines, which he tightened up for me.

 

I'm leaking motor oil where my motor connects to the tranny

 

And my transmission has the worst leaks. the pan gasket is leaking, which i wasn't surprised about because the folks at jiffy lube told me that. It is also leaking where the passenger side axel connects into the tranny. It is also leaking around the vertical pan on the driver side of the transmission is (sorry i don't know what the actual names for these parts are). Tilo put in some lucas transmission stop-leak stuff he said might help.

 

Now the psf leak seems to have stopped for now. The motor oil leak is pretty small so i'm not too concerned about it. However, my transmission is still leaking pretty badly. The stop-leak didn't seem to work at all. does anyone know what kind of money i'm looking at to fix this? I asked Tilo if he knew, but he works at a high end "bavarian autoworks" and deals with bmws mercedes ferraris and the like all day long and really doesn't know anything about tearing into a gm. I really want to get this fixed soon so i can park on the parking lot again, i'm just worried it's going to cost me an arm and a leg as i'm assuming they're gonna have to pull the whole transmission apart to replace the gaskets.

[White93z34]

unless its the axle seals that are leaking its probably just the trans pan, mine was leaking awhile back, i tightned up my pan bolts and it went away. also you could just change the filter and gasket and that oughta clear up your leaks too

[buckethead]

no, it's absolutely the passenger-side axle seal, plus the pan gasket, and also around that other pan that's on the driver side of the transmission (like i said, i don't know what that's called). We put it on a lift and could see that it was coming out in those places. We also tightened all the bolts on the pan, as well as put that stop-leak in.

[Bossman429]

Trans output seal is probably a $10 part, and will probably take about 2 hours to put in at a shop. so take the hourly rate of your favorite shop, and apply it to the situation.

Did you try to tighten the bolts on the trans side pan? I know that pan comes out of an l-body pretty easily, but W's are a lot harder because of the motor mount set up, I believe there is a bracket in the way of the side pan. If you get that pan gasket on the side done, you should consider getting the TCC solenoid done with it, since the TCC solenoid is behind that pan. A shop might give you a break, since they go together. A TCC solenoid is about $30, and a $10 gasket. I would estimate 3 hours labor.

 

As far as the oil leak, from what you descibed as oil leaking from the back of the motor, I will assume that it is the o-ring on the oil pump drive shaft. That's about a $1 part and 2 hours labor, or you could do it yourself by following the directions here:

http://www.w-body.com/service/oil-pump-seal.html

 

Parts are cheap, labor is expensive, I'm glad I work at a shop