I've got a '02 Lightning that I've rolled just shy of 9,000 miles on since Memorial Day. In August, I noticed clean tranny fluid was all over the underside of my tranny and on some of the vertical surfaces of it as well. I could not isolate from where it was leaking. I took it to dealer, where they replaced the gasket on the pan (bottom panel of tranny). Next month I noticed the fluid covering the tranny again and again could not isolate from where it came, so I returned to the dealer. This time they replaced the speed sensor, saying the plastic bracket thing was cracked and that fluid was leaking from there. Both times the leak was slow enough that the amount of fluid that had leaked out was minimal, meaning the fluid level on the dipstick was not noticeably low. I have found fluid leaking for a third time now, truck is currently in the shop at the same dealer who did the first two "repairs".

Has anyone else suffered chronic tranny leaks? Any ideas/suggestions? Please help.

 

Any tranny leak has to come from one of these sources:

TSS/OSS sensor, you already had the TSS replced, the OSS is on the extension housing

Rear seal, pretty evident if it's coming from here

Pump, or converter lockup seal/ converter leak, almost always will show up around the bottom of the bell housing, will be inside the dust cover on the bell, if converter lockup seal you may not have converter lock

MLPS seal, around the manual position lever

Pan/pan seal , you allready checked the gasket,. could be a machining blip on the pan surface, we almost alway catch these at the factory, every transmission gets a leakdown test before it's shipped.

Extension housing gasket, should be around rear of tranny, may be on sides as well, will not be on forward half of case

Cracked case, well, this one's pretty bad, you'll get a new tranny if you complain long enough about these and you're under warranty.

Hope this helps,

G

 

or the fitting to or from the tranny cooler up front is loose.

 

DOH!

I forgot the cooler fittings......

Knew I was forgetting one, thanks, Wendy!

G

 

I got the truck back the other day. The invoice said they pulled the exhaust down and tightened the auxillary cooler line. Also said something like "cleaned debris from orifice". We'll see if it stops leaking this time.

Thanks for your help. I'll post again if it comes back.

-J

 

Nasty Wendy - 1
Factory Tech - 0


Well Factory Tech really has 3,000,451 but those don't count.

 

I think the actual number is somewhere around 37,000, and last time i checked I had about a 90% FTT rate, so I have made a whole lot of mistakes (3,700 +/-) but who's counting?

G

 

Thanks for your help.