Rocky Gearbox leak

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Hi

I own a 2.7tdi Rocky with 165000km on the clock (from South Africa). It suffers from a very irretating oil leak between the engine and gearbox. My local meachanic has removed the box twice now to replase propshafts and replace the seal between the box and engine, however, it's still leaking. Any obvious reasons why this would happen?

Youre help is much appreciated

Did chief bozo tighten up the 4 gearbox bolts properly ?

My Forester was the first second-hand vehicle I had bought for many years. It had a full service history, but that didn't prevent the gearbox coming loose from the clutch bell housing and dumping 2 litres of oil outside my mate's house, 2000 Km after it had the kind attention of a supposed expert.

In my case, it was possible to push the gearbox up from underneath and watch the joint between the aluminium bell housing and the cast steel gearbox open slightly as the weight was taken from underneath.

Regretably the 4 bolts are inside the bellhousing, so you will have to drop the box out again. I tightened the bolts up to the maximum of the recommended torque and used loctite nutlock on the threads too. BTW, that's not the super-strong stuff that you can't undo again. The joint has been leak-free for 20000 Km since then.

The other thing that springs to mind is that the aluminium bellhousing casting is slightly porous (it isn't unknown .... I used to have a motorbike cylinder head that leaked very slightly that way). I'm also assuming that it's a gearbox oil leak .... of course it could be engine oil from the main bearing behind the clutch.