my car has been sitting for about a week. nothing strange untill today. when I went to the shop, there was a puddle of transmission fluid about the size of a 5 gal. bucket lid under the car. got to investergating and found it to be leaking from the...driveshaft yoke. not from the...tailshaft seal...but the yoke...between the U-joint knuckles... I can rotate the yoke 180* and nothing. turn it back 180 and it drips. I know that sometimes when the converter drains back the seal (if not good) will leak. but this is comming from the yoke... there is no sign of it to have been leaking while driving. (just got home from that 2200 mile trip.) my thinking also is: if there was a crack in the yoke it should leak under...operating load pressure...not just when the converter drains back... thinking about pulling the driveshaft and pressurizing the yoke with compressed air and see if I can find anything...anyone else had this happen? ......
Could it be a pinhole in the casting? I've had gas line fittings leak right out of the casting...it's rare.
I just had a new yoke do that on a Mustang at work..... It was an aftermarket yoke that had slight leak in the plug in the back of the yoke, aparently a small void somewhere around it..... I just cleaned it and put a little quick set epoxy on it and have had no problems yet.....
On the shafts I have built on the end near the joint has just a freeze plug knocked into the end. Sometimes the don't seal well. Another thing I have run across is the slip yoke being out of round. If it is only a little out it might have to sit in a certain place to actually leak. Some Ford slip yokes have a hole in the cap to let air out and have a seal inside to stop leaks.
Frank, some yokes have a small vent hole (supposedly makes the yoke move more smoothly) and some don't. Plug it and see...
My dad's '98 Chevy pickup did this. He found a small (very small) hole in the yoke, right where you have explained it. So.... we brazed the hole shut. No more leak. Now, like Russ mentioned, was it used for venting? Not sure. If so, that means fluid of a substantial amount should not make it past the splines, enough to cause a leak. So, our logic was, if there is enough room for fluid to make it past and leak, then there is enough room for it to squeeze back past the splines. No problems so far, and it has been like that for a couple years now.
:Handshake...guys it's 101* out today so might be a little later this afternoon before I mess with it...
fixed the leak...fired up the car and it filled the converter back up... i still need to pull the driveshaft and fix the spot that is leaking. ......
