Gears & Axles - rear girdle starts leaking after 15k miles

Noticed some oil under the rear (over cardboard)

Should re tightening the bolts do the trick?

It didn't leak until recently.

<small>[ March 28, 2002, 07:04 PM: Message edited by: mattf2 ]</small>

Are you sure it's your cover and not something like your pinion seal? Is this the stock cover or aftermarket? What kind of sealant/gasket did you use on the cover?

It's a T/A cover w/ the bearing bolts.

The whole rear of the cover is covered in oil, and there's a spot on the rear sway bar about a foot wide that is oily too..

Used RTV on both surfaces with a stock type gasket in between.

It stayed leak free for 1 1/2 years.

Best thing to do is get up under the car and see where the drip is coming from. If it's coming from the bottom of the cover, you will probably need a new gasket. It's also common that they will leak from the stud holes that sit on the main caps. People have been using thread sealer tape to fix this problem.

Josh

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Damian:
<strong>It's also common that they will leak from the stud holes that sit on the main caps. People have been using thread sealer tape to fix this problem.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I thought about doing this too, but it would seem to me that with teflon tape that it would throw off your torque reading on those bolts. And since the torque on those bolts is so critical, I didn't want to take a chance in under/over-torquing them.

I would use a OEM GM gasket.It's by far the best one. I had the same problem, switched back to GM and it went away.