Hi,

I'm having this problem every winter, after I get my car out, for winter beater. During the summer, I was taking off the trans, and did change the main crank shaft O-seal, with crank shaft case, and also the 3 o-seal of the transmission. I did clean the clutch with brake cleaner, and then, I can drive my car for about a month without slipping, and after that, it starts to slip again.

I'm out of idea here, how is the oil getting between the trans and engine??? Are there other seals that I don't see? This is my 3rd time that I disassemble the trans because of that oil leak, and changing all those O-seals. If I can't fix that, it's just too bad that I'll have to junk that car, and drive my WRX in the winter.

Any helps?

the tranny input shaft seal?!

Yes, but I did change that one 2 out of the 3 times I did remove the trans. I don't see my tranny oil going low either, but I do have to refill my engine oil, once every two weeks, but my engine has about 270k, oil might pass somewhere else also, but it doesn't smoke blue doh.

It could probably only be the rear main seal, input shaft seal, or a crack in the bellhousing.
If you're missing the dowel pins between the engine and transmission, you could quickly wear out the input shaft seal.
I guess the key is to clean everything up very thoroughly and you will find the leak.

Rear main seal. If you have lots of blowby, or lots of detonation from sh!t tuning, you will keep blowing out the rear main seal, no matter how many times you replace it.
Detonation causes blowby, and the rear main seal will be the first to piss it out.

Hey, thanks for all the info.

First, cleaning and trying to find the leak is my first challenge, since it's pretty complicated to do while the trans is on the car, and if I take it out, clean it, and put it back, I can't see between the trans and the engine. Then, if I take it back, since the clutch spin, the oil is everywhere.

About the trans input shaft seal, somebody told me that if the input shaft bearing is worn, it could worn that seal with it, if I replace the seal, should I replace the bearing?

Last, how do I determine if I have lot of blowby, if I take out detonation off the equation. Worn piston rings will give blow-by right? If my engine compression is 155 psi across the 4 pistons, my blow-by should be low, right?

I did notice oil coming out of my air breather, but this is confusing, because the last time I did the intake leak test, I couldn't get over 3-4 psi, because I could hear air leaking in the valve cover and via the air breather. The only way air could get there, is probably via the turbo, leaking from air compressor up to the oil feeding line. Could this air pressure in the valve cover contribute to my problem?

Thanks again!

Yes and no, your compression test will tell you if you have blow by, however a leakdown test will prove it for sure.

OK, my first step here, is to determined if it's leaking from engine oil, or trans oil, and I'm not willing to do a taste test.

How can I determine that? I've heard about a product that you can add in the engine oil, and then you can use like an Ultraviolet light to find some leak, does that exist?

Touch wherever it is leaking so you get some of the oil on your fingers, and smell it. They both have a very distinct smell, especially gear oil.

A less messy and more accurate way then the finger test is to use cotton swabs. Take a swab of the leaking area and toss it in a ziplock bag. Then take a sample from the motor under the oil cap and one from the transmission drainplug(just crack it loose enough to get a drop). Don't forget to label the bags so you don't forget which each one is. This way you smell them back to back to figure it out much easier. Although sometimes burnt transmission fluid can smell like motor oil. You said you have replaced yours a couple times so that shouldn't be the case.

You changed your transmission input shaft seal and didn't check your bearing play and shaft clearance/interference? Time to re-shim.

Well, I didn't changed it, I only took off the transmission from the car, and there is a local guy here, that was working at Dodge, so I send him the trans, and he did change the seal, the first time, because I needed to change the 2nd gear synchro, and then, after my clutch was slipping, I brought it back only for the seal and charge me 80$ for the work.

Who knows, did he check for clearance, or even, did he changed the seal or not???

What do you mean by re-shim, because the clearance between the shaft and housing is too big???