This will be only the second time ever I've had a slight problem with my car.
First was my water pump about 3 years ago.

I did a visual inspection of it after not having driven it for over a month due to our poor weather - and I found a puddle of oil near the back.
Leading my to believe that I have a bad seal in the rear end.

Hard to tell how much has leaked out......it's rather dribbled out and down toward the middle of the garage.
I am now wondering how good it would be to drive it to get it fixed - if I've lost too much oil I guess it could be harmfull.

What's your thoughts?

 

see if its leaking from the front cover or the back .. front cover is cheap to fix . if its from the back the gears will have to come out and u might as well put 4.10s or 3.73s back in

u can drive it all u want .. dont even worry .. u only really need 1 quart of oil in ur pumpkin .. just top it up if ur paranoid

 

Thanks Payam.

I took a looka and it turns out the oil is coming from where the driveshaft enters the rear end. It's leaked all down some sort of support rod that runs under the driveshaft in the same direction.

Would be nice if I could get 4.10's - I've always wanted them.......I guess the extra cost would only be the gears themselves.

 

And a rear-end rebuild kit

 

Congrats you now have a reason to put 4.10's in ...with a rebuild kit.

That rod thing is your torque arm, and it plants the tires on the ground beter for launching out of the hole.

 

Aw damn...........

From what I just read in the drivetrain section - they may not have to pull my rear end apart to fix the problem, you may wonder why this would tick me off.......

The reason this pisses me off is because I still have a year of warrenty left on my Camaro.
I was rather hoping to just purchase the 4.10's and then have the rest of the work done under warrenty............but if the dealership is likely to say that I don't need a to rebuild it - then I'm hooped.

 

Heh heh, the dealer will probably tell you a rear end wearing out is from abuse of your car and refuse to cover it on warranty.

 

The dealer will try to do it without pulling the rear end apart. They mark the pinion nut, remove it, then pull the yoke and replace the seal and "maybe" the yoke. Then put it all back together and claim it will last. Its NOT the best way of doing it. If the pinion nut is not put back in the original position, it will lead to bearing failure.

SID "front cover is cheap to fix . if its from the back the gears will have to come out and u might as well put 4.10s or 3.73s back in" Dude what are you smokin'? Lay off the weed man.

You can check the fluid level by pulling the plug on the passengers side of the diff. the diff fluid "should" be right at the bottom of the plug, I use the ol'pinky dip method.

Ryan K.