My rear drive shaft broke its u joint. The shaft stayed mostly whole but there is a lot of play in the u joint. When coming off the highway on the off ramp, heard some bad knocking and grinding. When I looked under the car ATF was leaking out.

 

Once it was parked it did not leak much. But once the tow truck pulled the car, more ATF came out.

 

Once parked again the tranny is not leaking much.

 

I plan to take a look at the situation this week and hopefully replace the front and rear drive shafts. Hopefully I did not damage the tranny much and its just an easy to get to seal.

 

Any help and speculation on my problems will be appreciated.

 

Michael

with the drive shaft , both sections, removed, there is no seal at the rear output shaft of the trans. the rear seal on the trans 'seals' to the firest piece of the drive shaft. it is not surprising that with a bad u joint and lots of vibration ATF would leak out. i'd replace the rear seal as well as the drive shaft.

like i said off-line, i don't think there's anyway to know for sure without looking. most likely i'd guess you need a new shaft and seal like JCE just mentioned. but there's also a possibility with enough vibration, play and movement that the actual rear tail housing was damaged. without seeing what exactly happend it's hard to say.

I will be looking and taking photos this week. Thanks John and Gary.

 

michael

Bet you discover the tailhousing has cracked. Hope it's just the seal but you will very lucky if so. More damage was done if the car was towed with wheels down.