HermanM

Hey everyone!!! My name is Herman and I have met some of the Sacramento area people at a few of the meets in the past (time, work and family doesn't allow me to make many meets these days) but I have a HUGE problem and I was wondering is anyone has also had the same issue or knows the best way for me to attach resolving the problem.

As the title reads, my front diff just dumped all of the gear oil onto my exhaust during a commute to work. My car has about 185K on it, rebuild motor and trans and I had a small leak that was dripping onto my exhaust that I noticed earlier this week and was planning on getting to this weekend and not it is a HUGE issue. I am not able to locate any blown gasket areas or notice anything but gear oil from the passenger side by the gear oil dip stick (the driver's side looks pretty dry) going down to the drain plug. Now when I got out of my car to look to see what was going on, I noticed that it was leaking onto the exhaust in front of the dipstick (closer to the radiator) vs behind the dipstick.

Background on the car and my commute: Sunday 11/18, I noticed I had an ATF leak that was going into my engine bay and filling my battery tray so I replaced the tops line going into the cooler on the radiator to see if it was just that line. Monday, I noticed the leak was smaller but still present so I changed the bottom line and bagged the top line to isolate each line to see if there was still and issue, which soft or hard line it could be. Monday nigh, after getting back home, I nothing no more ATF being blow all over the place (thanks to the cooling fans) and said that should do just fine and I would clean then engine bay out the next day because I has to take dog to the vet. Went to work Tuesday (15 miles on the freeway in bumper to bumper traffic), no leaks in the office parking lot, commuted home, loaded the dog for the vet and when I got back home, I checked again, and no noticeable leaks at all. Wednesday.... 13 miles into my work commute and my car is smoking tones of white smoke out of the hood and from behind as I drove. I get into my work parking lot to notice the engine (unassumingly the front diff) leaking onto my exhaust and can smell it is gear oil. I checked all the fluids and they are app topped off but my Front Diff. I get it towed home, Thanksgiving and 2 days of rain have passed and not I am trying to diagnose the issue and resolve.

If any know anything about this issue or has dealt with it beforehand I would love to know what to get into bc I have not be able to locate the source and I do not want to break it apart if it is more of an easier fix (not saying this is going to be easy) that I assume.

HermanM

HermanM

HermanM

A few different forums on a few different website state there could be an issue with lower grade GL-5 oils or overfilling. Both are potentially a good cause for this because I am not able to locate a since bad gasket for single source of the leak yet my CV joint that I have not replaced the ring on is pretty wet. I will try and deduce if this is the reason but would love other opinions and ideas. Thanks

HermanM

After degreasing the engine bay and running the car a little more to see if I could burn off the water, I noticed i still have a dripping differential. I did notice the area is is coming from is small drips right below the passenger axel and onto the “y” pipe. But i don’t see if coming from the axel seal area itself.

Mind blown.