GEARBOX OIL LEAK

Hi all,

hoping for a bit of advice. Have an oil leak which I believe is from the gearbox. Oil is being thrown under the car where the prop leaves the box. Haven't seen any on the ground yet... I suspected the back seal in the box but read on here about a batch of faulty props which could allow oil out even if the seal is OK. :blink: I'm struggling to see how this could happen, can anyone explain & could my car be affected if the prop thing is true? I believe the leak is quite recent & the car is an 07 we've had for 18 trouble free months & 12k mls. Odd for the prop to leak suddenly?

cheers,
Martin.

i had that happen to me once. from what i was able to find it's more of a design flaw. the problem is that o-ring in the box, around the prop, is just too (how do i say this in english...) "leveled" with the box's outter surface. the place where it sits is to shallow on the box. what happens is that with the vibrations it tends to come off a bit and then it leaks. does your car make a noise like reverbaration, or harmonic resonance when driving at low rpms? if so that could be the problem...
the ring itself is under 10£ i think, labour is about 2 hours tops.
if it does resonate, i would check the u-joints on the props.
you could just fill it up with oil, but you dont know when it's going to come compleatly off and spill everything on the road leaving you with a dry box..
i would not drive it with a dry box....well,maybe for like a mile or too and as slowly as possible i guess, but i wouldnt risk it if i could

thanks Decklandpt, I haven't noticed any unusual vibes. Is this o ring what I call the main oil seal? I had a look underneath but couldn't see anything unusual. But then I can't really see into where the seal is because it is recessed quite a bit. The car is booked in for Friday but I was concerned about the leaking prop shaft theory as they may not know about it. Don't want to risk no oil so not really using the car at the moment
All input on this welcome!!

I think thats it. It's the oik seal around the spot where the prop comes out of the box. At least it was for me. Had a massive splatter of light brown oil on the underside of the car just above that spot. No oil on the ground, i assume it only happened while driving. Of there is playnon the ujoints it can cause that, but it can also happen all by itself, either because the seal is old or because you pushed too hard while driving. Whennit happend to me i could see no reason for it to happen, it just did.
Make sure that is where the oil is coming from and not somewhere else. At the time i found the problema i was at the mot, and they pointed it out for me. I have no idea how long it had been like that. After that i drove it for around 30 miles to get home and to Take it to the garagem the next day, and had no issues with,the box, just try no to push it

Sounds like you have the faulty prop problem.
I had it as well (2008)
Usually it was picked up by the dealers during services and inside the warranty period.
Unfortunately if your car is low mileage(like mine was) the problem didn't show up inside the warranty period with the original owners and I was the third owner. It went at around 30000 mls.
My dealer only charged me for the parts with labour free.
The new prop is a different part number to the old one and this together with a new seal cured mine.
It was £200!!
The problem was inside the "spider" of the UJ. The oil works its way down inside the splined sleeve inside the gearbox and the the sealant used to seal the hole was either not applied correctly or was wrong in some way.
There was a post where someone used araldite or similar to go over the original seal and seemed to cure it??
The seal is not the problem as it is the same seal used on earlier Jimnys and a new one (£10) is just fitted as a precaution.

Here you go.
If you scroll down there are a couple of posts from CGAUER which have the original technical bulletin and his epoxy cure with pics.
If you have just had the seal replaced keep an eye on it for leaks as you may not have cured it and this gearbox is the third one used on the Jimny and is not the best!!

www.bigjimny.com/index.php/forum/7-jimny...-leaking-again-grrrr