In the last couple of weeks I have been noticing several small round wet patches on the road where I park my car.
My car is a 1999 Ford Focus 1.8 petrol which has done 80k miles.
Today I took the car to a garage for an opinion and he looked underneath the car and said that it was the manual gearbox which was leaking oil. Obviously because there is no way of checking the level of oil in the gearbox, I have no idea about how much has been lost and so am worried about doing irreparable damage to the gears and bearings inside the gearbox from continuing to drive it. I am taking it to the garage on Wednesday morning for the repair to be done. Are there any symptoms to look out for that would suggest damage has already been done to the gearbox e.g. difficulty engaging gears ?
26 minutes ago - 4 days left to answer.
Another concern that I have just thought of is could the oil from a manual gearbox leak get anywhere near the clutch or does this only apply to oil leaks from the main bearing in the engine (which is what I read on the engine oil bible website)
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I really wouldn't worry about your box, you need to loose a lot of oil before there is a chance of damage. An egg cup full would cover your drive. If you had lost enough to cause damage there would be a trail you could follow and the underside of your car (not just your engine) would be dripping. I have seen a car that lost all gear oil from an oil seal after damage during a clutch change. Symptoms were inability to select gears. After replacing the seal and topping up the box everything was fine. Most likely cause of oil drip is drive shaft seals, main reason to fix is to protect your drive. Also the drive shafts can throw oil everywhere and it can get onto the exhaust which smells. Very unlikely to contaminate the clutch.
Why cant you check the oil level? remove the filler plug, if it dribbles its full. If not top it up. Bet you it dribbles.
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Just remembered, this box should has an oil level 10-15mm below the filler plug rim. Use a piece of wire as a dip stick. Don't be surprised if its full to the brim, just means someone else has topped it up already.
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Just out of interest, where is the filler/level plug on the Focus gearbox ?
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I took my Ford Focus 1.8 petrol (ib5 manual gearbox) to the garage today for them to look at where the oil is coming from in the gearbox. He said that it was the selector linkage seal that was leaking and said that to repair it permanently he would have had to remove the gearbox and strip it down in order to fit the new seal. So instead he has fitted a sealer to it in order to try and prevent it from leaking again. He said that he cannot guarantee that it won't start leaking again because if the shaft in the gearbox is a bit rough it could drag oil through it.
In the Hayne's manual it says that for repairing selector shaft seal the gearbox does not have to be removed so I am a bit confused.
Do you think the sealer he used should give me some time to find another car ?
{moves to the relevant question as it's related}
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 23/06/2009 at 20:03
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Try another garage. I don't know this box very well, but I would believe Haynes this time. It would not make sense to fit a seal from inside the box
I don't think this is something to change a car for. Gear oil is thick and does not leak out very quickly. You may swap it for a car with a real problem
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We did this job on an Escort RS Turbo a few years ago, and it was simply a question of marking the relationship of the selector shaft to joint, undo the joint, prise out the seal, slide the new one in, seat it using a suitable sized socket, realign marks on the joint and tighten up.
20 minute job IIRC.
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