Hi, all. '91 Miata that had a clutch put in about 30K ago. Yesterday and
today clutch seems to be slipping a bit and no power making it to the rear
wheels. Tonight it got worse quickly. I put it up on the ramps and lo and
behold, there's oil all over the tranny and the tunnel above. No leaks on
the driveway but quite a bit spread all over on the underside of the car.
It's definitely leaking where the trans bolts to the block. My hope? I
assume there's a rear main seal that's leaking and allowing the flywheel to
sling oil everywhere including the clutch plate. If that's the case, can I
just have the tranny dropped, the seal replaced and just clean up the clutch
as long as it's still pretty meaty? My first clutch went 90K and I used a
genuine Mazda when I had it replaced. Thoughts? Thanks to all.....
I'm 90% sure it's oil. It's not red, and has the heavier consistency of
oil, but then again I can't honestly say I know what color trans fluid is.
Red like ATF? Duhhhh....
chuckk - 21 Aug 2004 20:20 GMT
The rear seal and the clutch disk and pilot bearing should be replaced. With
this old a model, you may have bad main bearings as well.
> Hi, all. '91 Miata that had a clutch put in about 30K ago. Yesterday and
> today clutch seems to be slipping a bit and no power making it to the rear
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> oil, but then again I can't honestly say I know what color trans fluid is.
> Red like ATF? Duhhhh....
L. Santer - 23 Aug 2004 13:14 GMT
> assume there's a rear main seal that's leaking and allowing the flywheel to
> sling oil everywhere including the clutch plate.
If one has the transmission off, it's not hard to remove
clutch/flywheel and replace the rear oil seal on the engine. I
recently did this. The seal is several inches in diamater and cost 15
bucks. There's also a seal on the transmission shaft that could be
replaced as long as things are apart.
However, it is hard to remove the transmission. Of course, you had the
clutch done 30K miles ago, so you know that scenario.