I'm just venting

Got the stang back last wed from adding front/rear spoilers and repairs. One of the repairs was the tranny being rebuilt. On the drive home the stang drove great.

I pull her out of the garage today and damn....the tranny is leaking. The bad thing is that the shop that did the work was recommended by a client of mine and is 100 miles away. I'm sure the guy is good for it, but damn (again), I really don't want to do another 200 mile round trip just to see if something wasn't tightened on the pan.

Hope to bring her in this week to a local guy that hopefully can see what's wrong and maybe one-two turns with a torque wrench and all is good.

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Now for my 2nd vent. The center of the NASA hood was painted black. I was there when he told the guy to pull the grill inserts out when painting the hood. Yes, you guess it. I popped the hood to check the tranny fluid and noticed that the grill inserts aren't there. The guy obviously forgot to reattach them to the hood inserts.

I won't know until Monday but hope the grill inserts are laying on a shelf in the shop.

I had a trani leak last year that was due to overfilling the fluid.

I'm sorry to hear about the trouble.

If the pan was sealed with RTV it will leak, RTV is not recommended for ATF.

Went out for a very short ride and no leak in the garage.

Does it matter if the tranny fluid is hot or cold for it to leak through the seals (if that's where its leaking from)?

Maybe tomorrow with the weather being nicer I'll take her out for a 1/2 hour ride to see if she leaks.

Sorry for your troubles.

Good idea to have it checked by a local shop.

To me, 200 miles is a little too far to take a chance of the fluid running low from the leaking.

I think if it leaks it will leak hot or cold. Maybe a little less viscous (less thick) when hot but in my experiences - if it leaks - it leaks.

Ray

No need for a short ride today as there's about 1 inch diameter of tranny fluid on the garage floor.

On the other problem with the NASA hood grills my body shop guy got back to me letting me know that his guy forgot to put them back on the hood after it was painted and put back on the car. So at least he has the grills and can mail them to me if I don't get back there.

Going to see a mechanic client of mine tomorrow to see if they'll look at the car tues/wed to see where the leak is coming from and if they can fix it or should the car head back up to North Jersey so the shop that did the rebuild fix the leak. I would hate to have to so another 200 mile round trip if it can be fixed local.

i made the same mistake years ago with a trans shop a friend recommended that was also 100 miles away from my house.

I moved into a new area, knew nobody i could trust and a friend recommended his guy way out in the middle of nowhere.

I had to pay to have the trans shipped to them to do the work since the car was non-functional at the time.

What i got back was a spray bombed silver job with No work done to the inside of the transmission and a BS warranty card from the trans place, the trans was cleaned up and installed about 1.5 years later after sitting on a shelf in assumed to be rebuilt condition. after installing it in the car, it was leaking all over, the trans place told me to go sit and spin and no way i could pay for a 100 mile car tow to do what have these con artists work on my car again?

at that point it was either take the engine out again with trans and then figure out where i was going.

i ended up popping the pan which they never opened in the first place draining a ton of rust and clutch pack gunk, i pulled the completely rusted trans filter, Dropped the Valve body, Rebuilt the valve body, then changed out as many seals as i could get to with the trans still in the car. Then i had to hunt for a good transmission pan which i found is VERY difficult. I got a custom C6 pan with 1 quart extra cap, No drain plug from an off-roader bronco website. All those Chrome Ford racing made in china pans do is leak, you cannot get those to seal at all. If you have your original PAN NEVER THROW IT OUT!!!

then i had to reassemble the entire trans and i adjusted the shift band for gear 2 and change the seal.

put it all back together and it still leaked. Had to change out the dip stick O-ring which i found out was a special size you cannot get from the parts store and only comes with a new dip stick assembly.

the new one still leaked. had to load it up with AT sealer.

leaked from the speedo gear, changed the seal on that. Leaked from the Yoke, couldn't fix that without dropping the trans.

bought lucas stop leak, and poured it into the trans. stopped 99% of the leaks finally; I had, had it at that point.

going back 100 miles on a questionable transmission is not fun... I had an alignment issue once and in my attempt to drive back to the alignment shop my front tire exploded do their negligence with setting my front camber on one side.

they paid for the repairs but i was stuck with a 300$ tow fee.

I never found a local shop i could trust either, and swore in the future when the trans grenades itself i will be rebuilding it myself.

I learned a lot about how trans shops can scam you, and i personally do not trust them anymore.

you can try calling this place up and explaining to them what is going on and they will be on the hook if you break down driving out to them, a lot of these shops get sued all the time.

what will happen now is a band aid fix, depending on what is leaking. you can inspect the dip stick area and the yoke and the around the shift linkage that exits the trans on the drivers side. check the trans cooler lines another spot that leaks, and if you can get some sealant on it you may stop it up a little.

good chance the pan is leaking at the gasket or RV they used. usually the pan weeps fluid it builds up then drips off. that is why you get a puddle and some times not, it either drips off before you get into the garage or after.

I seriously had to reseal my trans pan about 10 times and it still leaked no matter what i did, when i installed that custom trans pan my issues went way way down. again those ford racing chrome pans should be illegal for use.

any leak you have will most likely mean draining the pan so that is a pain in the butt by itself.

this was why i ultimately gave up and put a quart of Lucas stop leak in my trans. So far 8000 miles later its been ok. that was about 5-6 year ago now and it was a nightmare.

i still get small leaks from time to time like if i jack up the car and the fluid goes to the yoke seal.

i feel your pain.

I'm going to bring it into the local mechanic shop (client of mine) to see if he can tell where it's leaking from. I did stick my head under the car as far as I could and it feels like the fluid is leaking from the left top side of the pan. Guess that could be the pan or yoke leaking.

If by chance they can fix it for $100, go ahead. It would be worth not to have to take another day of from work and drive 200 miles round trip.

Thursdays the big day. Wish me luck.

Could be the front pump seal if they didn't lubricate it before startup.

Greg