To proceed further with the story of the leaking gearbox, I have made enough progress today to post pictures.
If you refer to post# 308 on page 16 dated 11th Oct, I mentioned that I had cleaned the garage floor of the oil below the car. See the pictures taken today, the 13th Oct. i. e. 2 just days later. Look at the new oil on the floor. In my book that's a pretty bad leak. The picture below is a general view of the gearbox as seen from within the car. Floor board from the passenger side is removed; driver side is yet to be removed. This will be the route that the gearbox will be following when exiting the car.
In the picture below, I have shown a close-up if the rear seal. This seal was replaced by me earlier. I was very surprised to see that the seal is totally dry and yet the drive shaft flange is soaked in oil. When the car is moving, the oil is sprayed in a circular manner by this spinning shaft. The oil you see above the flange on the gear selector boss seems to have got wet from the oil spray. My theory about the oil leak at this location is that the oil maybe travelling down the splines of the output shaft and ending up in the centre of the drive shaft flange and then being flung everywhere when the car is moving. Of course this theory will be confirmed when I take the gearbox apart.
Here is a picture of the gear box from the driver's side. You can see the mechanical rod operated brakes and just above the clutch actuating lever you can see the starter gear poking out its head.
Stay tuned to this place. Tomorrow the plan is to remove the starter motor. As per the workshop manual air cleaner/carburettor/exhaust all have to be removed in order to make room to get the starter out. I'll try to move back the starter just enough so as the facilitate the gearbox removal, hopefully, without having to dismantle the afore mentioned items.
