Input Shaft Tube Seal in Oil Tank

[Bob Coury]

Ran Daytona August 2022. Car ran flawlessly, and no leaks. Sits in my garage a month or so, and observe this weeping. I first thought that this was a front seal on my Hewland, and I recently realized that on my last engine oil changed, I switched to a different oil, and this is most probably engine oil leaking from the input shaft tube # 17, which closely resembles Redline Gear Lube. Question: Since it is only leaking from the rear, or Hewland side of the tube, can that o-ring be replaced without removing the adaptor from the engine?

[BrianT1]

My guess is when you changed oil, you may have over filled a bit. The overflow will go into the overflow tank which sits just behind the oil tank. Try draining it and then see if that fixes your problem.

Brian

[Bob Coury]

Sorry-I did not give the full story. Changed the engine an gear lube before the last race. Did not leak at all during the race-not a drop.
Park the garage, start it up on a weekly basis. No leaks. About 3 months later, it starts to leak. at the mating seam between the gearbox and the bellhousing.

At first I thought that it was Redline Gear Oil, ordered seals and input shaft bearing, but have yet to install because but on comparing colors it looked more like the synthetic engine oil. The previous owner indicated that it could be the seal on the end of the input shaft tube on the bellhousing.

Makes sense-but now it has miraculously stopped leaking-so added another qt of oil to the tank-and still no leaks.

Puzzled.

[BeerBudgetRacing]

I think Brian is right. The overflow tank is sealed by the mating of the bellhousing and gearbox.
If that isn't seal right, anything that gets into the overflow may leak out after everything cools and settles.

Adding more oil to the oil tank won't make it leak. You'll probably need to run the car on track.

Most of these car find their oil level by overflowing it.... As Brian said you might have added too much.

[Bob Coury]

I added more oil to the tank in order to get the level above the input shaft tube to see if the seal was the culprit.

I thought that the catch tank was a sealed unit, I did not realize that the catch tank relied on the the joint to seal, so thank you. I should have looked at the pictorial a little harder.

The catch tank was also emptied before the last race, and I did not check it afterwards.

Thanks all.

[Spengo]

Where do you let the oil out of the catch can at the back of the bellhousing?

[Bob Coury]

The small allen head screw circled

[Bob Coury]

Thank you all for the insight, as I have never had an LD 200 split from the bell housing before, just MK9’s.
it turns out I do not have an oil leak from the input shaft or from the bell housing. As stated earlier, I did not realize that the backside of the bell housing that is the catch tank, what is an open cavity to the gearbox.
The seepage is actually between the mating surfaces of the bell housing/catch can, and the front of the gearbox.