Hi All

I having terrible trouble with oil leaking out of the seal where the gear shifter shaft goes in to the box. I found a pretty big leak there so I ordered a new seal. However when I fit the new seal it seems to leak just as badly. 

 

When I take the seal out I can see fluid seeping out from the hole the shaft goes through ( the front of car up on ramps)  but the new seal doesn't seem to stop it. Most of the fluid seems to be leaking through the centre of the seal along the shaft.

Is it supposed to seal around the circumference of the shaft, or does the rear face create the seal against the case of the gearbox?

Also, any tips on how to get the thing to seal properly would be greatly appreciated, otherwise my trip to Monaco might be over before it begins!!

Cheers

Wes

I should add its the pre 1996 type seal, non flush fitting with the lip and gaiter

1 hour ago, wesacosa said:

I found a pretty big leak there so I ordered a new seal. However when I fit the new seal it seems to leak just as badly. 

Assuming you ordered the correct part, new seals have a loose spring. Shorten it to seal better.

 

Is it supposed to seal around the circumference of the shaft, or does the rear face create the seal against the case of the gearbox?

Around the shaft. Inside the housing of the gearbox there is another seal pressed from factory.

 

Hi Ricardo. Thanks for the reply.

The seal is after market not OEM (not even sure you can still get them , my local dealer wasnt able to help) but was from a Skoda specialist parts place in Czech republic so would hope it would be ok.   

 

Interesting about the seal inside the housing.   If I remove the front seal (again with car on ramps so the oil will all be pushing against the seal) there is a weep of oil coming from between the rod and the housing. Does that mean the seal inside the box is shot? Or does it need both the front and rear seal in place to be fully sealed ?

 

Wes

42 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

Does that mean the seal inside the box is shot?

Not necessarily.

Or does it need both the front and rear seal in place to be fully sealed ?

Of course.

 

 

Thanks ! maybe I was just unlucky with the quality of the replacement part then, or not careful enough when fitting it..   Perhaps I need to try again 

 

Cheers

Wes

Just called the local dealer and seems that only the post 96 flush seal (without gaiter) is available. I assume (hope!!) they are interchangeable 

24 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

I assume (hope!!) they are interchangeable

They are not.

 

Read this topic.

Edited 7 May, 20197 yr by RicardoM

Hmm, that's not good. I thought that I had seen a post on here where someone had swapped the new style flush fitting part for the old one plus a gaiter.

 

Do you know how they are different, and if there any way I could modify the new seal to fit? Or am I stuck.

 

Edited 7 May, 20197 yr by wesacosa

I just read the link you provided Ricardo, thanks. There one of those posters seems to have gone from a flush seal to a long seal with gaiter, so I read this as meaning I can do this in reverse a swap the long seal and the gaiter for a flush seal?

The long seal has a lip for using a gaiter. The gaiter has the role to keep dirt out and prevent wearing the seal.

The short seal solution discards the gaiter (sadly).

Now, to keep things short, do what I've said initially. Remove the spring of the seal, find its ends, untie them, cut a few turns with a pliers/scissors, tie the ends, install the spring. Done. Your seal will do its job better.

Now, there will always be a small amount of oil dripping around that seal. It's normal.

Many thanks, I shall give it a go

22 hours ago, RicardoM said:

They are not.

 

How did you come to this conclusion?

Ofcourse they are interchangeable, you just cannot use gaiter with flush seal.

 

Newer type seal is actually doubled, so it should provide better sealing, than older type.

 

Did you cover end of selector shaft with tape, when you installed new seal? Sharp edges can damage seal, that might be reason why it leaks.

Edited 8 May, 20197 yr by Papez

6 hours ago, Papez said:

Ofcourse they are interchangeable, you just cannot use gaiter with flush seal

There is part 002301227 for cars between 10.94 - 05.96, and there is part 002301227B for cars after 06.96.

By interchangeable I understand identical parts. When parts have different codes, they are different or similar at best.

The new seal lets the shaft exposed to water, dirt, road debris, etc. Sooner or later the shaft will get hit or it will rust depending on road condition and weather.

Well, I understand interchangeable as parts that can be swapped one with another, but they don't need to be identical.

 

Old seal isn't much better with protection from water and debris:

 

 

Dust and water finds its way in.

 

Difference is that once something gets into gaitor, it will damage sealing blade. Since newer type has two blades, it's not as big issue, because first blade wipes debris from the rod. Rust is not issue either, as long as you don't park on 1st gear (fully extended rod) for extended periods of time. 

Thanks guys. Main thing for me is to slow or stop the leak as its quite large now and I have 2000km journey in July. Anything after that is a bonus. O cannot buy the old seal and gaiter in UK and the one I bought from Czech is either no good, or I damage it when fitting. As postage from Czech is 9x price of the seal I can either try Ricardo's suggested modification of my seal or try the flush seal from Skoda. I think I will try in that order!

Wes

1 hour ago, wesacosa said:

Main thing for me is to slow or stop the leak as its quite large now

What are we talking about? "quite large" is very subjective. Find a quantitative way to describe it.

16 hours ago, RicardoM said:

What are we talking about? "quite large" is very subjective. Find a quantitative way to describe it.

 

Well its difficult to easily quantify.   I bought the car and drove it home and when I checked 2 days later there was a noticeable gearbox oil stain on the drive.  Approx 10cm round.  Now its impossible to know how long it had been gathering in the gaiter before finally spilling out on to the floor, but I would say any leak that is big enough to notice a decent size stain on the drive is in need of some attention.

 

When I fitted the new seal I left it up on ramps overnight and when I came back the gaiter was pretty saturated with oil when I removed it to inspect the seal.    I took the gaiter off, cleaned everything up and when I checked 1 hour later the whole of the shaft had a film of oil along its length as it ran down from the seal (again front of car was up in air)

 

So probably not going to drain 2.5 litres of fluid over 2000 miles but like I say in my opinion anything which leaves a noticeable stain on the floor after a few hours parking probably warrants attention, although I am starting to understand from this forum that some weeping might be expected even with the best job I can do on the seal

 

Wes

looks like the replacement"long" seal I put on had some small nicks around the inner sealing lip, either from manufacturers or more likely by my fitting.. give the huge postage cost to buy new one I went for a new flush seal from Skoda.  cleaned up the shaft with emery paper and fitted carefully. Let's see how it goes..... 

Could all be irrelevant though due to a new potential problem which I am about to post separately...

Carried out the replacement as described above. Car sat for 1 week with no sign of leaks (although this time not left up on ramps) so so far so good. Will use the car a few times this week and check again

50 miles later and still dry as a bone. looking good!

In celebration I decided to change the gearbox oil.   I drained the old oil but I noticed the drain plug did not have a washer. Not what I was expecting, but didn't seem to leak.  I bought a new drain plug but should I have a washer?

cheers

Wes

https://www.buycarparts.co.uk/oen/n0138272

Looks like the new seal has held..  Guess the moral is to make sure you clean up the shaft with some emery paper even if it doesn't look too bad in the first place, tape the end of the shaft and the pin hole , plus I spayed some silicone grease over the shaft to aid the seal sliding down the shaft

 

I have now changed the gearbox oil but seems to be blowing a bit of oil through either the breather hole or the seal around the clutch lever, which is strange as it didn't seem to do this before.

 

I drained out approximately 3 liters of transmission oil of unknown grade and refilled with 2.5 litres of 80w oil.   Have cleaned up the oil so will keep an eye on it,  but strange that 3 litres of the old oil didn't seem to blow out but 2.5 of the new oil seems to.    One question on the breather cap, should it be nominally in the up position or nominally in the down position ? I can pull mine up or down but it sits in whichever position I leave it in and doesn't spring to either up or down

 

Cheers

Wes

The moral is always clean up your shaft 🤭and grease it to aid sliding.

🤣