Gearbox leak

[RogueVector]

Hello

I have a Sigma 125 with 5 sp box. Car was registered after my build in Dec last year. It's only done around 700 miles up to now - but ever since having the car back from IVA it's been leaking a small spot of gearbox oil after each blat out.

 

I've been in discussions with CC about it (with Sean) and from what I've debugged its the gearbox tailshaft seal where the leak is coming from. There isn't like a whole shed load of oil in the tunnel - but it seems to be on the CV joint of the propshaft - but further back the shaft you go it's dry.

 

Has anyone else had a similar problem? If so, what did you do about it?

[Domus]

Snap, 150 Roadsport with a leaking tailpipe seal. When I built it I polished the propshaft seal path as, even though it was protected by a plastic sleeve, there were a few nicks on the surface. It would seem I didn't polish it well enough. I am hoping the seal is bedding in as the drips on the garage floor look a little smaller each time. To fix it properly it is either engine out or diff out. You choose

[DJ.]

Sorry to hear that, it's a real pain when you get these sort of drips.

 

With an Elan I owned, I rebuilt the engine curing several leaks, and assumed the gearbox was OK. Put it all back together and it was still dripping a little from the gearbox input shaft.

 

I must say, assuming the gearbox and diff both sound OK, I would be inclined to leave it. As long as you regularly top up the gearbox there won't be any harm done, and it's a very cheap part to replace as and when you have to disturb the gearbox or diff in the future.

 

I finished my Roadsport 125 in March, and have been lucky with oil seals, but I've been considering going back over diff noise as it does whine rather a lot. At the moment, I think I'm going to just wear ear plugs, as I don't fancy £1000 plus for the BMW and don't want to return my Ford diff only to get one that's worse!

 

Duncan

[huwp]

Had this on my Sigma car. Cost £175 to get it replaced (it was out of warranty). I was expecting the 'box and engine to have to come out so was pleasantly surprised that the seal could be replaced with it all in situ.

 

 

[Domus]

Hi Huw, very interesed to find out how it was done.

[sevenmad]

My Roadsport 125 has exactly the same leak, first noticed at 6 months, but now with 4000 miles on the clock it remains the same.

 

I too would like to know how the seal can be replaced without removing either the engine or the diff.

[RogueVector]

thanks for all the replies.

I've had a quote from Caterham. The part in queston is 10 quid and they reckon it can be fixed in situ by removing the diff, sliding it back - removing the prop shaft and then fitting the new seal. They reckon that takes 4.5 hours and at a cost of 330 quid.

That's crazy money to me - so I'd be interested to know who did it for 175 - and more to the point whether anyone else has had success of push backs to CC for labour cost under warranty for kits. I know one person replied to me by BM saying that CC had replaced the gearbox and propshaft with no cost -> but how did you negotiate with them? Cos they just keep saying to me it's not part of kit car warranty to cover labour cost

 

Also has anyone any views on oil additives like this one:

 

here

 

I am partially tempted to just keep topping up the gearbox oil - hence i was looking for oil and stumbled across this one. Is this good or bad idea?

[Grubbster]

Did you get my mail?

[RogueVector]

Yeah thanks got the mail.

 

I've now pinged a last ditch effort complaint to Caterham to see if they'll reconsider. After that if it is unsuccessfull then I'll mail to the Ansar-meister himself. Although now that Lotus are taking over perhaps I need to escalate to someone else. Dunno.

[huwp]

Quoting Domus: 

Hi Huw, very interesed to find out how it was done.

 

Domus

 

I took my car to a local chap in Kemble, Gloucestershire called Neil Garner. His garage look after my car to include servicing and MOTs etc. Neil used to work in F1 as mechanic to Alonso. Couldn't recommend them highly enough. They charge about £60 per hour for their labour so, factoring the minimal cost of the seal, you can see how long it took them to do the job.

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

[speakmp]

Hi,

 

I had a a slight leak at about 800 miles old when I bought my car with the 5 speed box. After a blat, i.e. once a week-ish, I guess you could see one or two spots, never really more than a 5p piece in size. This was far greater when on a hot summers track day, but returned to one ot two spots again after 'normal' blatting use.

 

As it was such a small quantity, compared to the work required to try to identify the exact cause and the cost to fix, I decided to live with it. The first time I checked checked the g/box oil level it became apparent that the box had been substantially overfilled at factory build(?). Evidence was the amount of oil spurting from the oil level plug hole all over me and the garage pit

 

For me, compared with the cost and size of job, I can live with the odd spot (less now the level is correct). However, my car was out of warranty when I bought it. If it was in warranty as a new car I'd be pushing Caterham to honour this, whatever their small print says / excludes them from.

 

HTH

 

PeteSV

 

[DJ.]

Caterham are quite up front about charging for labour for warranty work on kits.

 

On the order form there is a box you can tick for "Kit labour warranty package" as they charged £750 for this I didn't tick it. However, not going for this does mean that I accepted that the warranty only covers parts and not their labour charge to fit it. As a kit builder, it seemed to me that if I'd fitted it once I could do it again, but it is still very annoying when a part fails.

 

Duncan

[myothercarsa2cv]

After my PBC and my 1k service, CC mentioned my prop/gearbox seal was weeping. I said leave it, I'll take a look. 11k later, and nothing comes out. So all in all, I am guessing that the seal is fine

 

I understand it's easy to damage the seal sliding the prop in, but nowhere does it tell you this in the manual 😔