WTF?! the speedometer cable pulled oil out of my tranny???
 

The speedometer cable with a broken seal pulled some tranny oil out?? Enough to make the shifting really slow an sticky. Im changing to redline mt-90 and replacing those seals ASAP. But is that what happpned? Can that cable pull out that much oil??

If the cable falls out, you might as well consider the transmission empty. It drains a lot.

--Gary

Oh god. Thats def the problem then. I need to fix that asap. SHould I use some type of thread lock on the speedometer cable bolt into the tranny? Like the removable kind?

I've never had the seal fail, I've just had the cable work itself loose and fall out completely.

You could try threadlocker or some rtv, give it time to fully cure... should hold up against it for a while. Easy fix though, order the part from mazdatrix, I'm sure it's not too expensive being that small.

--Gary

I've had this problem happen to me. Twice. The second time was with a different tranny. It's the little seal in the speedometer driven gear that the speedometer cable connects to at the tranny rear. I was able to get the seal from mazda for a few bucks and then disassemble the driven gear and change out the seals.

It was pretty simple but cleaning gear oil out of the instrument cluster and the dash was a REAL PITA.

-Mark

over filled trannys will also have that problem. Make sure the gear oil is not above the fill hole on a level surface.

the problem of a sticky transmission??

This is wild. Can someone explain to me how oil ran UP the cable? I never took physics..but this sounds really wierd!

no, of oil traveling up the speedo cable

k, thanks for the clarification.

Lol.

I think he meant to say he never heard of oil traveling up the speedo cable?

But uh... it could happen I think... the cable runs through the casing which runs into the engine compartment into the firewall into the back of the speedometer. If the seal leaks, but the cable is screwed on properly and isn't leaking, then the fluid (when it gets hot it expands, putting a lot of pressure inside the case for the oil to try and leak out anywhere it can) leaks out into the cable... eventually filling the cable and into behind the speedometer.

--Gary

Nah... I guess I am just not being clear enough.

Okay more clear:

If you overfill your tranny, by putting in too much gear oil; gear oil can be forced up the speedo cable and exit out at the cluster

clear enough???

HUH, WHAT? I DON'T GET IT!11104

lol, j/k

I totally skipped over his post to you so it made no sense, makes sense now that I see it was your secon reply to him ;P lol.

--Gary

LOL... I thought I was clear, but you never know... sometimes people just don't get it on the internet (or in life either for that matter). :)

The spedo cable is just a tube dood with a pice of metal that spins in it. If the tranny is over filled like Icemark has said, a few times if I can read, it will build to much pressure and have no ware to go but up and out of the cable untill it has reached its end point, or point of atmospher if you will. Thus being the back inside of your cabin and the end of the cable.

I gotcha...i forgot that the cable was a tube. makes sense to me now. ;)

rotfl... couldn't understand Icemark or I but understood iceblue?!

ahahhahah

--Gary

It's not really a pressure thing I think. If you look at the speedo cable you'll see that it's a wound metal cable. Very much like a screw with tiny threads. The direction that the threads go when the car is in motions then impells (sp?) the gear oil up the cable and into your dash. It's a bad design thing. Not that I expected the designers to run that through to it's logical end.

^ :-/ umm ok..

lol, that must be funny to see gear oil leaking out of the gauge cluster! hahaha