Hi yall, first post on the board. I recently acquired my first rotary car! She's an all black 1990 convertible FC and I've had a lot of fun with the car since picking it up about a month ago. I put her on the lift for the first time today and nothing seems out of the ordinary, however I did notice that just above the trans end of the driveshaft there's a pretty concerning looking leak. On further inspection, it looks like it's shifter related, but I'm not certain. The previous owner installed a short throw shifter a few months before selling the car and also did a trans flush/fill in the process, so that's what makes me think it's shifter related. I'll be digging a little deeper tomorrow and checking the shifter boot and a few other things I can get to without raising the car up again. Anyone else have a similar problem to this?

 

everyone! its always leaky there, the boots don't like oil either so they usually turn into mush.
it is a very easy fix though, you can do it in the car with the AC on in ~15 minutes

 

The area of the transmission extension where the shifter is attached is its own gear oil reservoir. It does not share the gear oil that is in the rest of the transmission!

Carefully, take off all the covers and rubber boots until you get to where the shifter bolts to the transmission. Then remove the bolts to raise the lever out.

Bring the gear oil level up to just cover to the top of the control rod end, (the metal block where the bottom of the shifter lever sits.)

Clean and inspect the rubber seal and see where it is leaking from. Some short throw shifters do no have any rubber boot seals and the gear oil will slosh around and dribble down the sides of the housing just like your picture, nothing to do about it except check the level every couple of years.

If your centering spring is still working then consider yourself lucky, they break if you even think about them!

 

Thank you for the info! I meant to come back and update this post, but yes it ended up being exactly what you described, but a bit worse

I'm not sure what all happened, but the bolts for the shifter were all loose. I'd like to believe that the previous owner that installed the short throw shifter had simply forgot to tighten them, but it's probably all the transmission vibrations. Debating on installing the old shifter, as I enjoy the shorter throw, so I think I'll stick to your method of checking it every once and a while.

 

Learn from my mistakes: It is super easy to strip out the bolt holes in the aluminum housing. I think the recommended torque is 8 to 12 ft/lbs. So, I think the original installer did it correctly and vibrated loose over time.
Are you missing all the rubber boots for your shifter?
Short shifters are a large improvement, it's all about that 7000 rpm shift into third gear! I'd mess it up every other time with the original shifter!