Hello everyone. My 97 Sunfire has a bad gear lube leak. It's a 5speed with the 2.2 motor. Has anyone had an issue like this? I've searched this whole site and I haven't found anyone else with a gear lube leak. I don't know where to start all I know is that when I take it to get an oil change the gear lube often doesn't register on the dip stick. Any help or suggestions would be great!

Well, i think that your problem with the search is, not many people on here refer to whatever you're talking about as a gear lube leak.

Basic questions and excuse for asking to clarify, but is your transmission leaking fluid, or is your engine leaking oil? I don't remember there being a dip stick on the manual transmission, however, I've never had a manual 2.2 non-eco. I don't know if the quad and the 2.2 share the same transmission.

That being said, if you're leaking from the engine, that could be any number of seals, head gasket, valve cover gasket, and so on. If the leak is present under the car, the best way to find it is to get under the car, clean all of the oil/fluid off the bottom of the car. Make it nice and shiny again. If you're leaking badly, after driving your car for 50 miles, I would think the leak would appear and you'll be able to pin point where the engine is leaking. If it's not leaking that bad, you may have to drive for a couple hundred miles to expose the area that's leaking. If you drive it too much and you find the bottom of the car is covered again, you'll have to clean it all off again, drive for a shorter distance and look again.
Keep in mind, if the engine is leaking internally you should get some blue, or white exhaust. Have a friend start your car while you look in the back. Make sure your exhaust isn't blue or white, disappears quickly, and isn't overly dark.
Depending on mileage, you may be burning the oil in your engine due to worn valve seals, valve seats, worn piston rings, or other problems. Again, checking your exhaust color will tell if the oil is leaking internally. Some oil burning is normal. Some fo these motors will use a quart over 3000 miles, my eco uses a quart and a half over 5000 miles, but I'm also using synthetic oil which burns a little bit more (in my experience).
The one place your engine couple be leaking, and not on the ground, or internally would be the rear main seal. Most often it will leak into the transmission, but not always. If the rear main seal is leaking, you will find a lot of oil between the mating surfaces of the transmission and the engine.

If your transmission is leaking, this is a pretty simple diagnosis. Same as above. Clean off the transmission housing. Drive for 50-200 miles, roughly, then stop and check for fluid leak. I've found the most common place for transmission leaks on these cars is the axle seals. I've done mine twice. So far so good this time, lol, we'll see. To be honest, off the top of my head, I can't really think of where else the transmission would leak.

I hope this helps you. If you need clarification on anything, ask away.

Also, you'll want to avoid double posting the same question. That's a good way to get in trouble around here. If no one answer's your questions in a timely manner you'll just have to wait, or start exploring the problem yourself. You can bump your post to the top of the list to get more people to notice it, but I'd really refrain from posting twice.

Sunfiretun3r wrote:Well, i think that your problem with the search is, not many people on here refer to whatever you're talking about as a gear lube leak.

true enough.

Quote:



Basic questions and excuse for asking to clarify, but is your transmission leaking fluid, or is your engine leaking oil? I don't remember there being a dip stick on the manual transmission,

then you've never looked. backside, directly under the master cylinder.

Quote:

however, I've never had a manual 2.2 non-eco. I don't know if the quad and the 2.2 share the same transmission.

they do, just different bellhousings. HOWEVER, gear oil = differential oil. we have a transaxle. gear oil is trans oil in a MT STD transaxle.

Quote:

That being said, if you're leaking from the engine, that could be any number of seals, head gasket, valve cover gasket, and so on. If the leak is present under the car, the best way to find it is to get under the car, clean all of the oil/fluid off the bottom of the car. Make it nice and shiny again. If you're leaking badly, after driving your car for 50 miles, I would think the leak would appear and you'll be able to pin point where the engine is leaking. If it's not leaking that bad, you may have to drive for a couple hundred miles to expose the area that's leaking. If you drive it too much and you find the bottom of the car is covered again, you'll have to clean it all off again, drive for a shorter distance and look again.
Keep in mind, if the engine is leaking internally you should get some blue, or white exhaust. Have a friend start your car while you look in the back. Make sure your exhaust isn't blue or white, disappears quickly, and isn't overly dark.
Depending on mileage, you may be burning the oil in your engine due to worn valve seals, valve seats, worn piston rings, or other problems. Again, checking your exhaust color will tell if the oil is leaking internally. Some oil burning is normal. Some fo these motors will use a quart over 3000 miles, my eco uses a quart and a half over 5000 miles, but I'm also using synthetic oil which burns a little bit more (in my experience).
The one place your engine couple be leaking, and not on the ground, or internally would be the rear main seal. Most often it will leak into the transmission, but not always. If the rear main seal is leaking, you will find a lot of oil between the mating surfaces of the transmission and the engine.

this huge brick of text up to this point is useless.

OP, jack up the front of your car. there's a sight window on the bellhousing. look in there, if it's dry, your rear main and input shaft are good, and you don't have to drop the transaxle. if not, change both. if there's wetness aroundthe cv joints, then change your output shaft seals. it really is that simple.



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^^ Rich, some people refer to gear oil leak as an engine oil leak. I'm treating his question as "newbie" question.
No, I have not looked at the manual on a 2.2 or quad in over 6 years. Forgive me for not remembering if there was a dip stick, so chill.

And, forgive me for giving him too much information.

And no @!#$ gear lube is transmission. But he might not know that. I'm sure you've read a few of the posts on here. There are a number of people that don't know the proper names for a lot of parts of their car. Clarifying their question will help a lot in helping them figure out their problem.

I appreciate the input from the both of you. Tomorrow is my day off so I'm going to clean up the area and get a better look. I do know it is the transmission fluid that is leaking. I'll report back what I see tomorrow.

I thought they used ATF, what is this gear oil talk?


- Your not-so-local, untrained, uncertified, backyard mechanic. But my @!#$ runs

it does use atf. Some early transaxles used gear oil so thats probably why the op refered to it as such.

prime M wrote:it does use atf. Some early transaxles used gear oil so thats probably why the op refered to it as such.

Oedwards wrote:I thought they used ATF, what is this gear oil talk?

the 00+ getrag transmissions use atf. the 99- isuzu trans uses synchromesh.




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my old 98 cavalier had a trans leak, it was the bearing on the passenger side of the tranny right were the axle goes in. you have to tear the tranny completly apart to replace it. but once it got below that bearing it quit leaking lol