There is a small hole in the center of the shaft that comes out of the transmission rear seal, where it hooks up to the u-joint. this hole appears to be leaking trans fluid. I dried the seal with a cloth and the fluid seems to be coming from this hole about 4 inches from the rear seal. this is on a 94 GM Suburban. Thanks for your help.

remove the rear extension housing of the transmission( remove tail shaft and rear cross member--transmission pan on jack) the drive hear is held in place by a small spring clip that fits under the gear on the shaft. The drive is by a small ball bearing in the hole in the shaft
If the gear is damaged you should be able to pull it back off the output shaft of the transmission.
watch for transmission oil coming out when you remove the extension housing.

Lots of Camrys do this.

The oil will typically leak from the rear main bearing seal between engine and transmission, but that will appear at the bottom of the joint line, and will not reach the exhaust. This leak is expensive to fix and is usually left as is.

A leak from the cam cover gasket can drip into the exhaust.

The other typical leak is from the distributor shaft o-ring seal. This appears at the top of the join line between engine and trans, and can blow back onto the exhaust.

This should be a fairly straight forward easy job. You will need to block the wheels, or jack up the truck and set securely on jack stands. Remove the drive shaft by removing the u-joint straps and prying u-joint away from pinion. Make sure you do not let the u-joint caps some off of the u-joint as they are filled with many needle bearings that you do not want to loose. when you get the u-joint free of the pinion it is a good idea to wrap a piece of tape around the u-joint to keep the caps in place. Then you simply have to pull the drive shaft back to slide the front out of the transmission. Then you can get a small chisel around the lip of the seal and the back of the transmission tail shaft and pop out the old seal and then install the new one. Put the drive shaft back in and you are done.

Before taking this job on yourself, call a few local transmission shops as found in the phone book and ask them for a price to replace the rear seal on the transmission. Lots of work and a lift is ever so handy in doing this type of job. Now when you tell them what you want, have them say it back to you. No matter what you actually say, they will give you a ballpark price to replace the rear seal on the engine to fix an oil leak cause that is what they heard you say. You want to replace the rear seal on the transmission, to fix a transmission fluid leak. This is much cheaper job than the seal on the engine.

Failing that buy a cheap service manual on CD over on eBay and do a search on www.youtube.com, some nice guy has probably put up a video of a rear seal change on a GM transmission product and they are all about the same.

Good Luck

hello, fluid leaking out of rear end is probably the pinion shaft seal, its were the drive shaft hooks to the rearend, you have to drop drive shaft, take yoke off rearend, or if it is,more further towards the back,were wheels are, then you need axle shaft seal, you have one on both sides on the rearend, behind the drums, where the back brakes are, also look and see if its coming from back of transmission, where drive shaft goes into the transmission, see if you can tell what color fluid is, if its red, its probably rear transmission seal, where drive shaft goes into the transmission.

the rear seal on the tail shaft must have gotten damaged when you removed the shaft. it is available at any good parts store, easy to change. you have to pull the drive shaft back out, then you can use a small hook / prybar to pull the seal out, then tap the new one into place. pay close attention to the install height of the old seal before you remove it, so you know how far to drive the new seal in. good luck!

It's in the rear differential under the yolk where the propeller shaft(Drive Shaft) connects to it!
Have a Nice Day!! GMJ

to replace the tailshaft seal, you need to remove the driveshaft. just unbolt the u-joint at the rear differential, be careful not to lose the caps to the u-joint. once you've got the driveshaft loose at the differential end, it just slips out of the transmission. use a small prybar or screwdriver to pop the old seal out, don't scratch or nick the aluminum housing. then just use a large socket or pipe that fits around the outer ring of the seal to drive it in flush.

Hi,

If somebody told you that you have a main seal leak what they meant was the round seal that is around the circumference of the output shaft of the crank. This same output shaft is basically hooked up to the transmission, or through to the transimission through a clutch. Well after some time, the round seal, it looks something like a flat donut, leaks. Imagine stretching a small spring around a shaft of steel and wrapping the spring in rubber. It will stop the oil from leaking along the shaft and out of the engine. After wear and tear, it needs to be replaced.

If this is the case, well, given that you have not said what type of vehicle you have, you would need to either pull the engine out or drop or pull out the transmission to get at the shaft and replace the $10 seal part. A lot of work for a small item but it will continue to leak until of course you run out of oil and ruin the motor.

I hope this helps somewhat.

Could be quite costly. Especially the rear main seal on the engine. You have to take the trans out to even get to it. I would look for something else with less problems to buy.