my car is leaking oil between the block and the gearbox. apart from smelling it, how can i tell if it is gearbox oil or engine oil?
If thats where its coming from could it even be engine oil? I might be wrong but I wouldve assumed its gearbox oil as I didnt think there was any engine oil in that area.
rite, im off to take the who lot out again, and then split the box, again, and then see where the hell its leaking oil from again!!! arrrgghhhh i've just about had it with this f**king engine! would it fail its MOT if it was leaking?
No it wouldn`t fail an MOT and yes gear oil has a very distinctive smell(not sure what kind of cat Prof has but if its pee smells like gear oil then a trip to the vet is in order) whereas engine oil smells very little at all. Could be the main engine seal in clutch housing for the crankshaft and if it is then you have a bit of work ahead of you.
Not only does it smell really f*cking bad but once you have smelled it. Its all you can f*cking smell for the next 2 days and it seems to stain the smell into your hands. Why or WHY make it smell this bad
Gear oil smells bad cos of the sulphur content in it I think. One technical way of tell what is it use gas chromatography. I got a spare if anyone wants to borrow one
New gear oil ,the VW stuff ,doesn`t smell that bad BTW. I don`t know if it is because it is unused or that new oil doesn`t smell as bad as it used to.Well the old stuff had been in there for 18 years so I think it went off or technology has developed unsmelly oil.?
The gear oil I bought from VW about 6 months ago was nearly just as smelly as the old stuff that came out. That was just the basic Quantum stuff. Cheers
you could drain the engine oil, refill with flushing oil, run, and the thinner FO might be apparent in the leak. You've still gotta remove the box though either way?!
have you tried some of that oil seal repair stuff - it can seal very small leaks e.g. caused by worn seals, but not so good at repairing cuts, holes etc,.
thanks for the replies, its had a new crank oil about 500 miles ago, also fitted a new cluch and had the fly wheel balanced. it was leaking gearbox oil out the diff flange seals, so i put new seales in there and it stopped leaking for about 10 minutes and now its started again!!!
Hmm, my old 8v did that, prob too much play in the diff flanges. Could you move them laterally by hand?? Joe
If the surface is not rough enough when you put the new seals in, they won't seat properly and they will start leaking again quite soon. Had this on a Mk1 where the flange seals were changes and kept leaking. Did them again bout roughed up the surface slightly with a bit of wet/dry and then they were fine when the new seals were put in.
