I have a 2001 Accord with a 4cyl and automatic transmission. There is an oil leak from somewhere around where the motor and trans overlap. It's brown and mostly on the motor side so it's probably oil and not trans fluid. The bottom of the oil pan near the trans and the bottom of the trans closest to the motor are covered in oil and oil is dripping from the two prongs that stick down off the trans.

My question is about how to find the source of the leak. Under the motor's oil pan are two large pieces of cast aluminum which are bolted to the trans. One has a cable running out of it, I assume this is the shifter. The other, larger, piece doesn't seem to serve any purpose but it has a pretty beefy design so I guess it's some sort of lower transmission brace.

What is this larger piece? Is it designed to be an inspection cover? Can I remove it without concern for whatever it may be supporting? If not how can I safely remove this so I can find the source of my oil leak?

Thanks!

 

sounds like you have a rear main oil seal leak,common on high mile cars

 

First clean it up real good & see if you can tell from the color. Pink = auto-tranny fluid.

Sounds like you're describing a couple structural braces between the engine & tranny. (I don't have a picture right now...) You can take them off & get a better look, maybe your oil pan gasket is what's leaking. You don't want to run the engine without those braces, certainly no actual driving.

 

I decided if I was going to do this I might as well get a Haynes manual so I picked one up yesterday and found that the part I was concerned about is the lower engine support. I took it off without any problems. Thanks to the manual I made sure the bolts were retorqued to the right values.

I think the leak is from the oil pan, the flexplate is dry with some surface rust. If this was the rear main seal I'd expect the flexplate to be oiled. Is this a safe assumption?

Most of the oil was in the back corner of the oil flange. I retorqued the oil pan bolts to the manual's recommended 120 in lbs. Most of them didn't move at all, but the one at the back corner took about 3/8's of a turn. Maybe I'm lucky and that fixed it, if not I guess an oil pan gasket is in my future. There's also a ribbon of RTV all around the pan but none at this corner.

There has almost always been a very small leak here, so maybe the factory never torqued this right or didn't use enough RTV to seal. It's only recently that it became enough to drip on the driveway.