On the way home from our camping trip Friday my 94 3.0 XL developed a nasty trans fluid leak.
The vehicle was fully loaded down, whole family (8 of us) plus camping gear, kayak & car top carrier.
I was cruising up out of the Columbia Gorge, it was about 95F outside and I was climbing up out of the valley at about 60mph.
About 1 mile from the top of the climb I noticed a great deal of oily smoke trailing out the rear of my car. My heart sank, I started to fear the prospect of calling a tow truck while my family sat in the heat.
I pulled off the road immediately and saw the tranny fluid leaking out the bottom of the bell housing. It was coming out and dripping on the exhaust cross member which produced the aforementioned smoke trail.
Fortunately it made it to the next rest area where I gave it a more thorough looking over. I still had a lot of fluid in there so I went ahead and drove to Ellensburg and found an auto parts store.
I bought two quarts of Trans-X for trucks and a gallon of tranny fluid, along with a funnel and some paper towels.
Well, after putting in one quart of Trans-X the leak slowed way down.
Now there isn't even a spot when I park and idle.
I figure it's time to call around and get prices on seal replacement / tranny rebuilds.
Anyone have an idea of what happened / what to expect?
Tranny works good, no grinding and no hesitation. All gears operate smoothly at this time.
It has about 169,000 miles on it now.

 

Sounds like the front seal is leaking. I just got my 94 out of the shop for the same thing only this was my third rebuild. The first shop put in the wrong torque converter which came apart and trashed the front pump and seal. I had the tranny rebuilt by Ammco,which I was never fond of in the past, and was very impressed with their service and knowledge. This time the front seal started leaking and Ammco rebuilt the tranny just under the one year warranty. Seem the builder wasn't torquing the converter down properly and they had already redone twenty or so of his rebuilds. The long and short of this story is find a reputable shop with a good warranty. Also consider yourself very fortunate if this is your first tranny trouble with so many miles on it. Good luck!!!

 

Rbastedo,

I'm having my tranny rebuilt by a company back in Ohio, $850 includes freight and 12/12 warranty. Check them out at www.netgearhead.com. So far, very pleasant to deal with except has taken a while (14 days shipping and rebuild plus R&R). I'm hoping to post my "satisfaction" level soon, should have back Wed. at latest.

Thanks,
Mark

 

From our expierence with AAMCO, I would tell you DO NOT GO THERE! I have done some reserch after getting ripped off big time by AAMCO, and not just 1 shop, 2 shops. They are in rip off report quite a bit, and have really gotten themselves a bad reputation lately. They charged us for parts that they never installed. We had problems about 4 months after they rebuilt our A4LD trans. and had to take it back several times for them to "fix" whatever they didnt fix the first time, or the second, or the third, etc. And the 1 year warranty never resets after more repair work is done. So after the year was up, two weeks later it broke down and again, and they said they couldnt do anything because the warranty had expired. So just beware.
:-(

 

 

( . . . )

Quote:

I pulled off the road immediately and saw the tranny fluid leaking out the bottom of the bell housing.

This is an eerily familiar tale.
I had my A4LD rebuilt in '99. Last Mar. I was in Riverside, CA, getting some tires and alignment, and the alignment guy comes in to the waiting area to explain something to me and asks if it always leaks that bad. I put on my "horrified" face, followed him out to the van, to watch a drip-drip-drip off the bellhousing.

That morning, the driveway had been bone dry. Ten miles in stop-n-go driving in hot weather with A/C on, and it's leaking like the proverbial sieve.

I got it home, dropped the trans, polished the TC hub and replaced the TC seal. Now I'm 13k miles down the road with no further leaks.

What really flipped my cookies was how *fast* the leak started. Ten miles.

Regards,
Al S.

 

I used to work at an AAMCO. There were crooks and there were honest shops. You never know until you find out how well they stand behind their work. The sad thing is that they have ruined (in my opinion) a nationwide network that could have helped the consumer and built confidence. Now it seems that people who know anything avoid them. Back when they started, automatic transmissions were a major source of consumer fraud because they 'were so complex and new'. Nowadays, many trans shops will get their remans from the OEM. Chryco ships transaxles in a plastic shipping container used to return the core... The shop can't beat the price the Mfg can sell at.
The franchise corp takes its money off the top. Period. No matter if you are making a mint or losing your shirt, they get their money. They have no heart and will stick the ignorant new franchisee with rebuild kits for '53 studebaker borg-warners and '58 Buick Dynaflows... quick turnover inventory.
The
Beyond that, it seems to me that the A4LD will do its leak thing, and then, for no known reason, stop. Temperature seems to cause it to dump fluid and then it will be dry for ages... Go figure.
tom