Major Transmission Leak...Never seen this before.

[HondaBlitz]

Hi everyone I'm new to the site but do follow some posts and search when needed. I have an 98 3.0 auto that has 166,000 on it. I've had the car for about a year and everything has worked great until recently.

 

I was going up snoqualmie pass...(large hill in Wa) and had a fully packed car..camping gear, dogs, etc. it was about 80 degrees outside, doing about 70. Just as I crested the hill I could smell trans fluid and smoke from it buring off. I was tacking 4.5 and tried to get the tranny to shift into 4th but no dice. I pulled over and could see the line of fluid I was dropping behind the car. When I pulled over the lower front of the trans, the wheel, subframe, etc was coated. I'm not to familiar with these cars but the trans was still intact so I'm thinking it had to be a line.

 

I towed it home, filled it with fluid, and started it up so I could see where the leak was coming from...except I didn't have a leak. I drove it up and down the street and never got a line of fluid, leak, or drop hit the pavement.

 

I'm not sure what this could be. Any assistance would be helpful. Thanks in advance guys.

 

Warren

[Xeryon]

Complete guess: given the description makes me wonder if you overheated the hell out of it and actually boiled over the fluid somehow. As the fluid expanded it made a pressure leak and sprayed out of a seal or gasket somewhere. Once everything settled down it's back to normal.

 

My $0.02

[HondaBlitz]

That's what I'm thinking, I just don't know where the vent would be. Has this happened to anyone else? Thanks for the response.

[HondaBlitz]

Anyone else have ideas. I drove it around for about 20 min. yesterday and everything seemed fine. I plan on doing another trans flush to put honda spec. stuff in it.

 

Thanks.

[Xeryon]

The crush washers on the drain and filler are not particularly strong material. I could see how they might give way under pressure, especially if they have been reused at some point.