Gearbox oil leak?

Renault Twizy
#1

So my Twizy is now 3 years old, and i finnaly decided to have some fun and got myself a powerbox.

I was recommened to change the gearbox oil when tuning the car.I got help from a buddy that works alot on cars, and we drained about 0,95L of very crappy lokking oil, and refilled 1L of 80w90 GL5 oil.

I checked for leaks under the car the first week, no leaks. But on sunday i drove the car like a madman, hit 100 celsius on the motor, drove it to 10% SoC and charged it full and drove it more, so probably around 120km, and parked in the garage. The next day there was some oil on the ground, as shown on the first picture here in this album: https://imgur.com/a/9u9aRs6

I had to leave for work, and got home today, it does not look like any more oil has leaked out. I unscrewed the top plug and checked that there still is alot of oil in the gearbox, closed it and tok the car for a 15min drive to warm it up a little, but could not see any more oil leaking out. I dont know exactly where the oil leaked from because the bottom plug looks clean. I will go out and check in a few hours if there is any sign of leaked oil.

What should i do in this case? Im not 100% sure how much has leaked out, but it cant be more than 0,5dl. Ive tightned the bottom and top plug a little more. Should i drain it and refill it again just to be sure there is enough oil in there?

There is lots of pictures in this album if anyone can make any sense of this: https://imgur.com/a/9u9aRs6

Thanks for any help! :slight_smile:

#2

The Twizy doesn’t quite hold 1l of oil and are well know for excess to leak out the breather pipe.

#3

Thanks, i think you are right. Very swift reply! :grin:

#4

After driving it for 2 days it has leaked even more. We used an electric pump and it tok in some air when pumping so it made lots of air bubbles in the oil, if that could be a cause of why its leaking so much. This is a picture from today: https://imgur.com/a/ZbMF4tz

#5

No the electric pump should not have had any effect on the oil leak. The gearbox sits only partly in the oil that the carter holds and the spinning gears pick it up from the carter and lubricate themselves. The leak most certainly comes from the fact that your put too much oil in. Out came more or less 0,95 (which doesn’t include everything as some of the oil is not drained) and then put 1 litre back in actually exceeding the 1 litre mark. The manufacturer of the gearbox actually specifies only 0.8 litres of oil for this gearbox. Here you can find the technical documentation:

http://www.comexspa.com/index.php/en/products/item/download/32_736b9118000f19a96cc27c353f779faf

As Osbrook mentioned, it just blows the excess oil out of the breather pipe, so it should automatically level out. It’s just quite annoying and can stink a bit.

#6

The oil from the breather pipe, also just runs every where making it really hard to find if there is a leak from the seal somewhere.

It’s not my car and we really don’t know how much has come out. Like all liquids a small amount spilt goes further than you expect. If you are still concerned, start again, but measure how much you drain out. (easy to say :slight_smile: )

#7

Thanks for reassuring me, i’ve not been able to identify the leaks at all because the oil has been everywhere and not located around a specific bolt or plug. I would have changed it again just to see how much that came out, but i dont have access to the pump atm because mye friend is working offshore for 2 weeks.

For now the leaks seems to only be a few drops at the time. So i think its starting to level out like bcv92 is saying. Thanks for all the help, i will just keep an eye on it, and if it leaks for an extended period of time now, i will change it to see how much is left. And if its getting very low i will just have to let renault look at it.

Thanks

#8

The seal from the gearbox to the axle tends to need replacement and will leak oil as it happens. Also happend to mine.
Its quite a few hours of replacement to do it, cause the gearbox has to go off…
If you look up below the axle on the gearbox on the mcu side. If you see wet stuff (oil) out of the black seal, this is your problem.
New seal is 20-30€ but takes alot of effort to get the gearbox down and off the motor. Then apart and up again. Of course oil has to be drained and refilled. A workshop here charged someone 550€ for the job.

#9

I will keep an eye on it, but the leaks pretty much stopped after a week or 2, and to ease my mind i changed it again just to see how much was left in the gearbox, and it was about 0,8L left. So im pretty sure i just had too much oil in there. I plan to take it into service in a few months and going to let them do a full checkup on the car, because im planning to sell it.

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