I was working on my STILL leaking transmission pan today and finally found out why it's leaking, and what lead the former owner to give the car to me. When the front drive shaft let loose it smashed the transmission pan, the exhaust line and the the transmission itself.

What I have in this photo is a hairline crack and part of the pan sealing surface missing. I'm not sure why I didn't catch this the first time, but I missed it. It was never the pan that was leaking it was the transmission body itself.

In my preparations for hara-kiri I decided to remove the transmission and weld it. I broke out the TIG and the aluminum wire and went after it. I'm letting it cool now and will re-install in morning. But my message is simple, if you've not replaced your front drive shaft, do it anyway, you could be next.

 

Thanks for the pic, but you're a week a late with the story.

This would have been very good Halloween stuff.

Glad you got it fixed.

 

Fixing comes today, will posy my success...errr lack of success later

 

**** just jbweld that b!tch and call it good.

 

Thats what I would have done too!

 

eh' I wanted to do the rear main as well, was just an excuse to remove the SOB. I've got down of the lift; just had a hot shower and I'm going to go test drive. I miss the days when I would finish a job and just have the **** go drive it for a few miles while I had a smoke.

 

whatever happened to that PDF file of how to install the greaseable u-joint?

 

http://static.scribd.com/docs/tkatf9...IAL_VIEW=width

 

Thanks for that link, I know what I'm doing next Saturday now. I wrongfully assumed that the shiny new OEM drive shaft was the solution. The new OEM is not grease-able and I'll have to rebuild this coming weekend.

 

Well if it is new you can drive it for a while. The sealed u-joints are good for at least 50,000 miles. Also the u-joints just don't explode they do give fair warning so if you are in tune with your truck a failed u-joint should not be a surprise. I understand wanting to get it out of the way but at least get some mileage out of the part. Just my .02.