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What a bloody day

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1K views 17 replies 7 participants last post by  Chris155 
#1 ·
Today I ripped the undertray on my car on a gate stay on my dad's driveway. The undertray newly bought and fitted only a week ago. :rolleyes:
This is, somehow, very good news.

The reason I say this is that had this not happened, I would not have suddenly realised that I have a gearbox oil leak. Seems to be from the passenger side driveshaft seal.
I would have been driving to Devon in it tomorrow, and would undoubtedly have therefore had a catastrophic gearbox failure due to lack of oil. It's still showing oil on the gearbox dipstick, but it's well below minimum.

The bad point of all this (apart from the new load of work which will need doing) is that I had to spend hours ringing around car hire places to eventually find someone who could lend me a car big enough to replace the GTA and it's roofbox in terms of luggage space - since both would have been filled to the rafters. So I've had to spend £260 for the privilege of driving a dull as dishwater Avensis estate instead of my GTA for the next week. Mind you, I'll probably make £100 of that back in petrol costs.

There were also a couple of clicks from that area of the car on pulling away this morning before we realised the cause. At the time I wondered about CV joint, but now I'm thinking it was the low oil, and hoping nervously that it has done no damage.


All this happened too late to be able to find a garage to take the GTA to now and have them work on it while I'm away - so I can also look forward to being without a car for a week or so once I'm back. Still, I was already going to have to take it somewhere for the air con issue that's also occurring currently.

Bloody car. :rolleyes:
 
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#5 ·
I had to have help finding it. If you look down the back of the engine, behind the throttle body, the housing you can see below is the top of the gearbox. The dipstick is sticking out of it, but the handle is grey against a grey background in a dark place and is probably only 3 inches long. You can just about snake your arm down there and reach it, with only a few burns if the engine is hot.

The other upside on all this is that it means I haven't got to sit in traffic for 8 hours tomorrow in a car with no working aircon.

Oh, and the hire car has no CD player, so I don't have to spend the journey listening to Roald Dahl audiobooks either.
 
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#9 ·
I checked my gearbox oil level with the dipstick a week or so before we were due to go on holiday to France last summer. The day before we were due to travel I spotted some oil under the car on the drive. Major panic to find where it was coming from - undertray off and lots of head scratching later I worked out that the gearbox dipstick had not been properly pushed in and it had lost around half a litre or so of gearbox oil all over the underside of the car.

Sent the wife on a mad dash to get some gearbox oil to top up and got most of the mess cleared up. Was still wiping oil spots of the back of the car a week later in Brittany!!!

Glad yours turned out to be nothing more serious as well....
 
#12 ·
I'm back from Devon, after a mammoth 7 hour journey back up. The Avensis was serviceable, but dull. And if you got it off boost (quite easy because of a weirdly large difference between 1st and 2nd) it pulled away with the blistering acceleration of continental drift. Used £65 to do well over 600 miles though.


I guess it's quite possible that the leak is due to the dipstick not being properly in place - I hadn't even thought of that. I suspect not, but I'll have a look in the morning at whether I can see anything sign from above - and whether there's any oil on the drive indicating it's still leaking (and therefore not the dipstick).

The next question is - how am I going to get some oil back into the gearbox? Enough so it won't damage itself driving to the local garage to be fixed.
I have some tubing which will fit into the dipstick hole - but it is by necessity very narrow. Not sure I'll easily get any oil to run down it. I also have a syringe previously used for dog medicine which fits the tubing perfectly. Holds only 10ml though, so that could be a loooong job using it! I wonder if I can use the syringe with the plunger removed along with the tubing, as a kind of extended funnel? Will the oil even run down such a narrow pipe, or will it be too viscous?
 
#14 ·
The next question is - how am I going to get some oil back into the gearbox? Enough so it won't damage itself driving to the local garage to be fixed.
I have some tubing which will fit into the dipstick hole - but it is by necessity very narrow. Not sure I'll easily get any oil to run down it. I also have a syringe previously used for dog medicine which fits the tubing perfectly. Holds only 10ml though, so that could be a loooong job using it! I wonder if I can use the syringe with the plunger removed along with the tubing, as a kind of extended funnel? Will the oil even run down such a narrow pipe, or will it be too viscous?
When I refilled mine, I warmed the oil for 30 mons in front of a fan heater to make sure it's all runny, then used a big syringe (200ml I think). I'm sure you could make some sort of funnel and connect it up to the piping you've already got and pour it in as long as it is warmed. Takes a while though so find a way of supporting it so you can leave it to do it's stuff.
 
#16 ·
Thanks everyone.
 
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