Atlas Transfer Case Losing Oil

[canyonclan]

Indeed "Customers Are Our Quality Control" as Jage puts it so succinctly.

I can't wait until my Atlas II begins to mysteriously lose oil...I'm still seething over having to replace two Ford start batts, which were less than 2 years old

Thank you Yuba River for the post, that helps a lot!

-Jeff

[Yubariver]

Since my latest post, I have put about 500 miles on the SMB, and the oil level on the sight-tube has dropped about another 1/8" at most. Before I left on the latest trip, I cleaned/de-greased everything in the area thoroughly, so that I could gauge any evidence of loss. The only area where any oil-loss is visible is still the big drop of oil at the bottom corner of the pan, and some visible spray around the rear-wheel U-Joint. You can also see where the spray hit the catalytic-converter and has been mostly burnt-off. I suppose that with enough miles, you could steadily lose enough oil to be noticeable from this U-joint spray, but I just can't believe it happened over only 500 miles; perhaps it is a combination of the two issues? The gasket from Atlas arrived by Priority Mail promptly at least, and free-of-charge, which was welcome. So, I'm not really in the mood to remove that pan again just yet, so I will keep track of the level and when/if the level drops enough to get me worried, I will replace the gasket, change the oil and properly RTV the through-hole bolts. If it remains an issue after that....what next, the U-Joint? Perhaps I'll try Jage's paper-towel suggestion to gauge just how much I'm losing from that corner.

[jage]

The corner seems likely as pressure builds in the case you could have significant loss, that in the absence of more evidence of the 1/8" loss might be "disappearing" onto the road. I'm anxious to hear as the Atlas on my Jeep has the same issue (although I ran it below the site tube) and I haven't had a chance to look into it.