island_civic

Hey,

Thought I'd share a funny problem with my 1985 Honda Civic Wagon. Upon leaving my car during a recent road trip, I noticed that my right shoe was soaked with what looked like transmission fluid! I felt the underside of the dash and trans fluid was literally dripping from the plastic onto the floor mats below.

I traced the problem to the speedo cable which had somehow augered trans fluid up the cable and deposited it onto my shoe. I checked the fluid levels and sure enough this had been happening for a while and the fluid was running low. I disconnected the speedo cable, plugged the hole and scratched my head as to what was causing it.

My only guess is that there's an o-ring in the speedo gear assembly at the transmission end that's gone south. I bought the replacement o-ring and I'm going to try to replace it. Has anyone ever done this? There seems to be a small, flat plate held by a bolt at the top of the trans case and then there's a spout coming out of the case itself. I'm assuming that this is the gear assembly. How do I remove it? Does it just pop out? Thanks for any and all replies.

Crx Jimmy

I would rather get a used speedo gear assembly from the junkyard rather than fix it. it should be cheap. I have never heard of this happening.

island_civic

I spent some time under the hood this morning and I couldn't get the gear assembly out of the transmission. It's in there pretty good and I don't want to force it as most of it's made from pretty brittle aluminum. Anyone ever have to remove this part?

I did notice however that the collar on the end of the speedo cable was a bit loose. It's crimped on there but it seems to have slid a bit. The previous owner swapped up the transmission so he must have had to remove the cable. My guess is that he yanked on the speedo cable which loosened the collar enough to allow the fluid to wick up the cable. Then when I yanked on the cable it loosened even more to the point where now it doesn't even work when it's plugged back in. I'm gonna swap up the entire speedo cable to see if that doesn't fix the problem. What a headache.

Crx Jimmy

there is a o-ring inside that is probably leaking and you should spray some oil on top to loosen the large o-ring that seals it into the tranny. if you pull the whole assembly straight up it should come out, try twisting when pulling it out

island_civic

I figured it out...

I bought a $3 O-ring that the dealer suggested to try to fix the speedo drive mechanism at the transmission end. It was useless as it just keeps the seal tight around the drive assembly itself to keep tranny fluid from leaking onto the top of the trans case. This wasn't the problem to begin with.

I finally found a junker that had the whole shebang: speedo cable, drive assembly, and gear assembly. I couldn't get the damn drive out of the trans case so I just left it in there, and hoped that it was just a shot cable which was letting the fluid up. I also noticed that there wasn't a vent cap on the top of the vent hole. I cleaned out the vent with a piece of wire to make sure it was venting properly and put a new rubber cap on.

I also swapped up the speedo cable. The old one was a bit stiff and you could clearly see it bulging and kinking from the repeated stress of being pulled out of the collar. It was shot.

I sprayed the top of the trans case with carb cleaner to get rid of any gunk and oil and drove it 1000KM, stopping every hour or so to check for oil leaks. So far so good so it might have either been improper venting, a lousy cable, or a combination of the two. Thanks for the replies and hopefully this helps someone else out if they ever have this problem.