Hello all, 96 Cherokee 4.0 stock engine and such all original, 240,000 miles I recently took my Jeep to a transmission specific mech who has a good reputation here in town, as I had a small leak appearing at the pan edge and assumed maybe the deal was going bad. He changed that, the fluid, etc and sent me on my way. I don't drive it as my daily but on the weekends I take it out and it's been two weeks and I have a leak again. I brought it back to him and he looked and claims to see nothing that would show why it started leaking again. Changed the seal again for me anyway, and a day later, I've still got a leak. I took it out for a decent hour ride and arrived home with fresh tranny fluid coating my tailgate. Normally I'd do my own work, but it's quite the pita to access those aft bolt heads with the brace bar in the way. I still might give it a go if I had a clue what to attempt. Any suggestions? This guy has a good rep in town as the best for transmissions, and the fluid I had on the back didn't seem burnt smelling, but it's leaking like a b***h all over my driveway. Thanks ahead of time for any thoughts/suggestions!

 

The transmission isn't the only thing that can leak ATV. The transfer case also has ATV in it and it can certainly leak out much faster than one might expect it to. The stuff gets pumped around in the transfer case and it can leak out from higher than the fill level.

 

There's no sign of a leak at the transfer case that I can tell. The only place where my large puddle is, is directly underneath the pan. I checked the lines running to the transmission and they are tight and by looking, leak free. Only at the edges of the pan and obviously some on the bottom do I see fluid. But nothing steady, and no dead give aways.

This is why I thought the seal was the culprit initially.

 

check the vents for both the xfer case and the trans.

 

This may sound like a newb question, but where exactly are the vents located?

And should I be checking them following a short/long drive, at idle, or off?

 

you'll have to crawl under it and look. you will see the tube sticking up and hopefully they are both exiting somewhere in the engine bay. look along the firewall and under the brake booster.

by check them I mean remove each of them from their respective parts and see if they are clogged. a clogged vent will force a leak, even on good gaskets/seals.

edit: vehicle turned off, ideally NOT right after driving as hot parts suck to make contact with.

 

Am I to assume that the other ends of these will be directly connected to the transmission and the xfer case respectively?

What would be the best method for de-clogging one given one or both of them are?

And lastly, if it turns out one of them is, do I need to replace the transmission seal once more or should the old one be fine with a restored vent?

Appreciate the advice thus far!

 

1) yes, the xfer case will have its own vent, as will the trans

2) there is typically a plastic breather looking piece on the end of the vent (the top, in the engine bay) that gets clogged. separate it from the line and see if they'll both move air.

3) I would replace the gaskets/seals in the area of suspect.

4) no problem. I had an xfer case vent tube that was blocked (the plastic piece was full of gom). I changed the xfer case output shaft seal 2x before figuring out the problem.

 

I will take a look tomorrow morning and see what I can find. Kinda hoping it is the breather piece! Thanks again for the help, I'll report my findings tomorrow.

 

typically if the trans breather is blocked off it will push the dipstick out of the tube.

 

Never had that happen. The only breather tube I could find at a quick glance, was one on the driver side that seemed to feed down and forward (guessing not the transmission one) wasn't too bad, just fairly dusty. I read that typically the transmission one is between the transmission and oil dipsticks....mine doesn't appear to be. However the prior mentioned tube was ziptied to some other lines so who knows what fabrications have been made. Will know more tomorrow when I've some actual light to see what I'm getting into.

On a sidenote, will these tubes simply pull out with some force so I can clean them up, or am I going to have to cut the lines and replace with a new breather? I tried pulling them out with no luck, but not sure how fragile that flimsy feeling top piece is.
Also, I did notice some fluid on the xfer case, but still feeling confident it's from the transmission pan. Guessing it's just residual spray from driving that's transferred.

 

Assuming you paid for this "repair" I wouldn't worry about it, just take it back and make them fix it.

 

As previously stated, even the mech who did the work couldn't see a reason why it was leaking without tearing everything apart. If it were a simple seal change, I'd have no issue paying to have it "tried out". My philosophy however is if it ain't broke don't fix it, so unless I know what's wrong, I'm not paying to have it "fixed". Especially not when its big ticket items we are dealing with. We all know how quickly things add up when it comes down to throwing parts at something to see what fixes things.

 

I'm afraid I misunderstood then, I thought you already paid someone to have it repaired.

 

Why not have your mechanic just check the breathers on the trans & transfer case. If it's on a lift/hoist, he can remove the bottom ends & blow some air through them. etc...
If they need cleaning, at least you will know where you are at in regard to the leaks.