Apparent trans fluid covering drivers underside of car, pooling in driver’s rear footwell area.
A little background. Car has been raced for last three years, a handful of times per year. When I got car, trans was wet with what appeared to be trans fluid, so I had someone install a hose on the trans overflow, terminating in a catch bottle in the engine compartment. Note that at this point only the trans was damp, not the underside of the car. After installing the overflow tube, I never saw a trace of fluid in the bottle. That was three years ago, and it seemed to have stopped the fluid leak, so I was pretty sure it was the overflow vent.
Fast forward to June 2019, raced RA, got car home, and noticed a substantial amount of oil covering the driver’s underside of car, so much so that there was trans fluid pooling in the driver’s rear footwell area. No idea how fluid got there, other than it seeped in from under the car. Another data point is that there was also a very small amount of fluid in the catch bottle, and the underside of the hose seems to be damp with oil. Not wet though, just damp.
After reading every post I could find on this, it certainly seemed that the hose had popped off the vent allowing the trans fluid to again escape, but this time much worse than when I got the car. Before checking the vent, I pulled the inspection plate off the trans to see if it may be engine oil, but it was dry under the plate and under the oil pan and bell housing, so I ruled out engine oil.
So, I figured it was the vent. I loosened the motor mounts, loosened the exhaust, and lowered the rear of the trans just enough to snake my hand up there, and it seems that the hose is still connected to the vent. However, I can feel what seems to be a hose clamp with no screw, so it is possible that the hose is not really very tight. But, the hose remains snugly on the vent, the band of the clamp seems tight against the outside of the hose, and a gentle tug did not pull it loose. So, I am baffled as to where the recent fluid is escaping from? Since I had never seen any fluid in the catch bottle and now there is a trace, could fluid have come out of the end of the hose, ran back down the hose, and then somehow covered the underside of the car? This seems to defy logic, but I really have no other idea, other than the hose is not really that tight on the vent, but then why would there be any fluid at all in the bottle? Any ideas?
Thanks for reading the long story.
