Recurring Transmission Leak

[AlphaAssault]

About a year and a half ago, I had to take my GSX in to replace the output shaft seal in the transmission. The mech said the old seal looked fine, and that there might be some play in the output shaft, though he couldnt feel any after tugging on it. He simply told me i need to keep an eye on it; which I have. All was going well until tonight when I discover a large puddle of trans fluid under my car, leaking in the exact same way it did 18 months ago. My question is, what inside the transmission could b=move about and cause the output shaft to shift? Is this common? Is there a fix short of dropping the trans? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[jdodds]

Assuming the oil is coming from your output shaft, I would pull your transfer case off and see if the shaft can be pulled out easily. Check for play in it also. If it just comes out, take the end case off the transmission and look through vfaq on trans rebuilds. Youll see the step where you put a small ball in there to hold the output shaft in. If there is a ton of play in it, there could be a couple causes. One would be the thrust washer inside the center differential might be bad/destroyed. Something more likely would be the bearing could for some reason be missing that goes just behind the seal on your output shaft. Maybe the viscous coupling could be causing it. the snap ring might have come loose on that. Only one way to find out!