Input shaft seal?

[CSX321]

My '89 CSX has dripped some oil from the bell housing ever since I bought it. It only seems to do it when it sits and idles in neutral for a while. I thought maybe it was the rear main seal, but I pulled the engine and tranny in the spring to fix some things, and there was no obvious source of the leak. The main seal seemed okay, and I've also replaced the oil pan gasket.

At this point I was thinking it could be either the oil gallery plug or the input shaft seal? The oil that drips looks clean to me, cleaner than the engine oil currently is. Is it common for the input shaft seal to go? Is there any use trying some seal conditioner in the tranny oil?

[Turbodave]

My 89 Shadow did the same thing for a long time, I just checked the fluid level occasionally until I got time to pull the trans and replace the seal. But then I got sidetracked and swapped in a nice 555 I had sitting there, so the 520 is now on the shelf still needing that seal replaced.

[tryingbe]

Take the transmission out and change the seal. It's a 15 minute job as most, once you have transmission out.

BCA/NATIONAL Part # 3732S

[CSX321]

Is it agreed that it probably is the input shaft seal? I guess I should buy some UV dye.

[Turbodave]

Dave you can remove the dust cover from the belhousing, clean everything up real good and then run it for a little while. If it's the input shat seal it will be leaking down from the tranny side of the bellhousing. If it's a rear main or glley plug there will be oil all over the backside of the flywheel.

[CSX321]

Dave you can remove the dust cover from the belhousing, clean everything up real good and then run it for a little while. If it's the input shat seal it will be leaking down from the tranny side of the bellhousing. If it's a rear main or glley plug there will be oil all over the backside of the flywheel.

Ah, good idea! I spent a long time this weekend in the crawlspace installing installation, and my body and brain aren't working too well.

[CSX321]

Finally took a look at it today. It's definitely coming from the tranny side.

Everything's going at once. There's this seal on the '89 CSX, the oil light is coming on at idle in our minivan, and the front wheel bearings finally went yesterday in the SRT4 after whining a little for a couple of weeks. I'm hoping the van is just the sending unit. It's full of oil and it runs and sounds fine.