Oil leak from bell housing... this car must be cursed!

[gargravarr]

One problem after another...

I put Wildcat back on the road last week after the ignitor in the Supra died - still searching for a replacement. And it's back to the old problem/fix routine, yay! I got it out to France with minimal fuss, then got sideswiped by a careless French idiot who couldn't keep to his side of the road - demolished my wing mirror and badly scuffed the rear wing. Fuming. And now, as I'm packing up to come home, I checked the oil and it was dry. There was oil in there a week ago, just before I came out here...

Checked under the car, and practically the entire underside of the engine and gearbox are nicely oiled. From what my stepdad and I can tell, looking through the hole in the bell housing, it's leaking through from the clutch side of the engine, so I'm assuming it's the clutch bearing/oil seal gone bad.

Having just experienced the joys of replacing a Renault Scenic gearbox, I am utterly enthusiastic about replacing this seal... I've got a Haynes manual, naturally, so the question is, is this enough to get the gearbox out and replace the seal? Or, since I will have the tools at my disposal next month, is dropping the engine out of the car easier than just dropping the gearbox? We were told we should have dropped the Scenic's engine instead of leaving it in, just want to hear people's opinions... and partially to justify this rant!

 

[Danmids]

Sounds like it can only be the crank seal. Not done one of those myself but the gearbox is relatively easy to drop. I've had mine in and out about 10 times in the last three months so quite well practiced by now! Worth checking the breather isn't blocked as well.

 

[chrisc]

Yeah, I'd say it was the rear main. I've known a couple to go on the 1700's.

 

[gargravarr]

Kind of pissing me off all this is going wrong with the car (see my previous posts) and it's got 73k on the clock. MOT history doesn't truly prove or disprove, but I'm suspicious it's been clocked at some point. My higher-mileage Fiesta never had problems of the same degree this Puma has suffered.

 

[oilburner]

On the direct gov website you can check every MOT the car has had since they went digital. Seems kind of pointless to me clocking an old car that isn't worth much though

 

[gargravarr]

On the direct gov website you can check every MOT the car has had since they went digital. Seems kind of pointless to me clocking an old car that isn't worth much though

That's what I meant by 'not conclusive', the digital history goes back to 2005. I don't have any paper MOTs. I just don't find it inconceivable, perhaps because it's a limited-edition, that someone has clocked it. Otherwise, I'm having a hard time explaining why so many things have gone wrong in the same period of time.

 

[oilburner]

At the end of the day it's a 12 year old car and things are going to go wrong